National Assembly’s Constitutional Implementation Chair, Jeremiah Kioni has called on the Senate to set up a Commission to resolve County boundary disputes.
The Ndaragwa MP said that a Constitutional Commission was required to solve disputes that have persisted since the promulgation of the current constitution in 2010.
While citing the disputes between Laikipia and Nyandarua Counties on who owned Nyahururu town, Kioni said that there was need for the two counties to agree on the administration of the town as a result of the commercial interests Nyandarua laid on the town.
“We filed a petition to the Senate citing the dispute but the Senate has never constituted a Commission. The lack of goodwill by the Senate has stalled the process. This is a County boundary and not Constituency that we would have handled with the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, IEBC.
We have no fight between us and Laikipia, it is a question of how we manage our investments in Nyahururu,” added Kioni.
He suggested that the town would also be administered as a municipality to benefit the two counties, saying resources meant to develop Nyandarua had been pumped into the town since independence.
“We now have our administrative unit at Ndaragwa and Shamata towns and we are not going to push to retain the town but benefit from its resources that we pumped in,” argued Kioni, encouraging the governors Ndiritu Muriithi (Laikipia), and Nyandarua’s Francis Kimemia to forge the way to solve the dispute.
Nyandarua lost grip of Nyahururu town last year, with the relocation of the Nyandarua North Sub County headquarters to Ndaragwa town, a move that the area MP said had aided in salvaging the township that sits on forest land.
Kioni was speaking in Ndaragwa on Monday, when he led the residents in resolving controversies on the jurisdiction of the newly formed Aberdare Sub County.
The residents agreed to retain the sub county and create more divisions to back up Shamata Ward for the administrative unit, while allowing Kiriita ward to be administered by Nyandarua North.
By Anne Sabuni
