Kehancha town has been elevated to the status of a municipality following the signing and the gazettement of the. Municipality charter
The resolution to confer the town with the municipality stsutus was passed by the Migori County Assembly and the signing of the Kehancha Municipality Charter by Migori Governor Ochilo Ayacko.
Governor Ochilo noted that the towns’ assessment passed the criteria set to confer it to a Municipality making it the fourth Municipality in the county after Migori, Rongo and Awendo towns.
He said that the Municipality status conferred to the town will require more development in terms of infrastructure, both from the county and national government.
Already the county has advertised the positions for the Municipality Board Members who will be in charge of running the Municipality.
“I have already signed the Kehancha Municipality Charter and the document is already gazetted. The county has already advertised positions of board members who will be tasked with the effective running of the Municipality”, said Ochilo.
He noted that to maintain the Municipality charter status the town will require an integrated development plan, proper revenue collection, effective and efficient delivery of services to the local residents.
Ochilo acknowledged that effective participation in the running of the Municipality affairs will be equally important to the delivery services of the entire county.
He affirmed that the county will help the town to restructure and replan to align it with the developmental agenda in the Kuria region.
Conferment of a Municipality comes with enhanced resource allocation both from the county and national government for developmental agenda. Ochilo said that Kehancha town will be able to participate in many development negotiations and allocations, privileges that come with the municipality status.
He emphasised that the Municipality will help the Kuria residents to generate more wealth that will enable the town to grow economically by utilising the presented opportunities to increase the status of their new municipality.
“Let us develop our municipality by doing business in our own towns to enable us to generate wealth and eradicate poverty”, noted Ochilo.
The benefits of Municipal status to a County include access to developmental road infrastructure funds by the Kenya Urban Roads Authority (KURA), Kenya Urban Support Programmes (KUSP), World Bank, and United Nations (UN) funds among others.
By Geoffrey Makokha
