Murang’a County Assembly on Tuesday adopted a motion seeking the immediate release of emergency funds to help residents affected by floods and landslides in the county.
Moving the motion, Kahumbu MCA Chefman Njoroge stated that every ward should receive funding from the emergency fund so that affected families could be easily assisted adding that access to the fund is urgent.
Njoroge, pleaded with the county executive to enforce the release of the funds to individual wards immediately.
“I request the executive to enforce this now so that we can be able to get and access these funds, it will be easier to help our communities,” he said.
Seconding the motion, Muguru MCA Moses Muchiri revealed that the Assembly passed the emergency policy and the emergency funds regulation the previous year, which allows the county government and the CEC Finance to withdraw and use the funds to assist people affected by floods and landslides.
“I wish to inform Murang’a residents that we passed Murang’a County emergency funds regulations many months ago which allows the Murang’a County government and the CEC finance to access money to cater for emergencies which may arise in this county. They are free to withdraw and use the money to support victims of floods and landslides,” said Muchiri.
The chair of the Finance and County Planning Committee, John Ngugi, disclosed that Sh7 million had already been approved by the controller of budget to be available to all the MCAs.
However, Ngugi noted that the money was not enough given the severity of the damage caused by the ongoing rains and added they had agreed on the funding to be Sh23 million which is to be distributed equally among all the wards, with the remainder to be utilised by the executive to move around the county and assist affected families.
“Sh7 million has been approved by the controller of budget and even though that money will be available to the MCAs, it is not much,” he stated.
“During the supplementary budget, we set the funding to Sh23 million and we agreed that every ward would get Sh400,000 and the rest would be used by the governor to move around and assist families caught in emergencies,” he added.
With the ongoing heavy rains causing loss of lives and destruction of properties in the county, MCA Peter Njuguna observed that the speed at which the county has been responding to emergencies is worrying and pleaded with the Assembly to come up with mechanisms that will help affected families receive help swiftly.
By Purity Mugo and Anjilwa Francis
