County assemblies have been urged to enact laws that promote open governance through easy access to information by the public and the media.
Lucy Ndung’u, a commissioner at the Office of the Ombudsman, said access to important information by the public and the media is of essence in order to build public trust and help fight corruption.
The commissioner, who spoke during her visit to the Kajiado County Assembly, emphasised that access to information by the public will help promote integrity and restore confidence in government institutions.
“Ease of access to information will go a long way in giving confidence to the public on what projects and programmes are taking place within the government institutions, it will also promote integrity and ultimately help wage war against corruption,” said Ndung’u.
Kajiado County Assembly Speaker, Johnson Osoi noted that the Assembly was committed to ensuring that access to Information Act is adopted for the benefit of the citizenry and their needs adequately incorporated in all major decisions that the legislature and the Executive will undertake.
“This is timely and we want to assure the public that as the legislative arm of the County Government we are prepared to enact the most relevant and important pieces of legislation that improve the quality of governance in Kajiado,” said Osoi.
Osoi said the County Assembly has consistently undertaken open forums like taking plenary sittings to the remote areas of the county in order to give opportunity to the public to get information and question their elected representatives on matters of devolution and roles of the Assembly.
“As an Assembly, we have been at the forefront to ensure that we disseminate information to relevant stakeholders and the general public through civic education. We have incessantly conducted ‘Bunge Mashinani’, plenary sessions in the wards to engage the public before the public on different issues that affect them at grassroots,” said the speaker.
He added that the Assembly was determined to come up with user friendly platforms that will enable reachability to a larger number of people on matters of public participation and accessing information from the institution.
By Rop Janet
