Kajiado and Ngong municipalities of the larger Kajiado County have received shs215 million and shs50 million respectively for the financial year 2018/2019 from the World Bank.
According to Ngong Municipality Manager David Kobaai the two municipalities which were just created barely a month ago are under high gear to secure more funding in the next financial year 2019/2020 beginning July this year.
Kobaai told the press yesterday in Ngong town during an interview that the municipality was ready to deliver standard projects that meets the British Standards Institution (BSI) in order to secure more packages of funding in the next financial year.
“The funding we have already received for roads and bus park shades will be put into good use to ensure maximum utility of tax payers’ money,” reiterated Ngong Municipality Manager.
Kobaai noted that Chiefs and their Assistants will work together with the resident associations Committees to ensure that the roads to be upgraded to high standard murrum grade, meet the (BSI) standards.
He said the projects will be carried out under strict monitoring and evaluation process and nothing will be left to chance as the Municipality kicks off the maiden projects.
Kobaai said the roads projects in Ngong had been allocated shs120 million for upgrading 68 kilometres and shs95 million for the bus park shades.
“The shades project is of its own kind in Kajiado and is expected to house small-scale businesses for the youth and promote job creation in the Municipality,” said Kobaai.
The manager said the municipality concept was a new venture in Kajiado County since the past regime was under the County Council and not municipality.
He noted that a lot of projects were expected to be rolled out in Kajiado County with the advent of Municipalities which attract International Funding through the National Government Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the World Bank.
Similarly, Kajiado Municipality Manager Francis Parsimei told Kenya News Agency during an interview at a Kajiado Hotel that Kajiado qualified to be conferred into a municipality by the virtue of the requirement that County headquarters become a municipality.
He said Ngong Municipality qualified according to the last census in 2009 as an urban centre which already meets the population threshold of 150, 000 people.
“The law guiding municipalities is contained in Article 184 of the Constitution of Kenya, 2010 and the Urban Areas and Cities Act (UACA) of 2011 and revised in 2017, which deals with governance of such areas,” said Parsimei
However, Parsimei noted that the law which came into force after 2013 general elections failed implementation since Counties were seen as the only recognised levels of devolution.
“Kitui County is the only County which went ahead to establish Kitui Municipality, and therefore received the funding due for municipalities between 2013 and 2017,” said the Kajiado Municipality Manager.
He expressed fears that some Counties will still be left out in the municipality funding since they were still not ready to transform their urban centres into municipalities.
The Professional Urban Planner noted that according to the MOU between World Bank and the National Government, only 59 municipalities could be funded and 14 were already existing.
“With 45 remaining out of 47 Counties, Kajiado has been allocated two in the funding framework, thus increasing the scope of development projects for the County Government,” said Parsimei.
He urged other Counties who were yet to confer their County headquarters Municipality status to focus on the benefits they will get through the status and not to dwell on the fear of the unknown.
The benefits of a municipal status to a County includes access to Kenya Urban Roads Authority (KURA) roads’ infrastructure funding, Kenya Urban Support Programmes (KUSP) funding, World Bank, the European Union, JICA, USAID, UKAID, the UN funding among others.
Kajiado Municipality consists of two wards touching the urban centre namely; Delalekutuk and Ildamat. While the larger Ngong Municipality has seven wards in Five from Kajiado North and Two from Kajiado West. They include Ongata Rongai, Nkaimurunya, Olkeri, Oloolua, Ngong, Euwaso Oonkidong’i and Keekonyokie.
By Nelly Kosgey
