Civil Society Organizations ask Kakamega County to improve service delivery

Kakamega,

Thursday, November 16, 2023

KNA by Moses Wekesa

The Civil Society Network in Kakamega County has threatened to hold peaceful demonstrations against poor service delivery in the region especially in rural areas.

The organizations complained over misuse of funds meant for development and diversion of other resources earmarked for certain projects leading to white elephant structures and denying residents services.

Speaking in Kakamega, the network leaders said some policies that were formulated have remained as paperwork with a lack of commitment from the county government to implement them.

The Chair of Kakamega Community of Practice (CoP) Fredrick Omolo who is also the founder of Matungu Rural Poverty Alleviation (MARPA) said they have decided to change strategies in demanding accountability from the county government as the duty bearers fail to listen to their concerns.

He noted that the civil societies have also agreed to write petitions to even development partners to ask them to demand accountability for funds they allocate to some projects in the county.

Omolo said despite the CSOs engaging the County Executives on development, the duty bearers in the county have been giving false commitments as residents continue to suffer.

“We are changing strategy in approaching executives in this county because we have done so many petitions, we have done so many memorandums, we have also held meetings with executives and many times the moment you are in a meeting the commitment they give is false commitments,” he added.

“They have helped us put legal frameworks in place but eventually after assenting to the legal frameworks, you will get them putting them into archives. That is why now we also have to derive other strategies that will make us achieve some of these things,” he pointed out.

A programme officer for Rising to Greatness Organization Halima Nyota asked the county government to allow freedom of expression as enshrined in Article 33 of the Kenyan Constitution by giving chance to people to express themselves in public spaces, without attacking them, to promote social accountability.

The Civic Freedoms Forum (CFF) is collaborating with the Kenya Community Development Foundation and Partnership for Empowerment and Networking (PEN), through the Giving for Change Program, in supporting the Kakamega CSO network and the Kakamega Community of Practice to continue having a very robust voice in holding duty bearers accountable on what they are doing.

An Officer from CFF Mitchel Mwelesa said the forum is trying to consolidate CSO action into civic space protection.

Courtesy; KNA