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Month: May 2019

Makueni among the core counties to inform a study by World Bank on the impact of devolution

Makueni County has been chosen as one of the core counties that will inform a study to be conducted by the World Bank jointly with the Government of Kenya on the impact of devolution on service delivery.

According to the World Bank Senior Urban Management Specialist Abdu Muwonge, the study seeks to assess the performance of devolution since its inception in 2013 adding that it will also document key successes, its challenges in the past six years as well as propose ways to improve it in accordance to the findings of the study.

“The main reason of our visit to Makueni today is to get an overview of a study that we intend to carry out to assess the impact of devolution since its inception six years ago, the successes, challenges and the way forward,” said Muwonge.

Muwonge congratulated Makueni for being among the core counties identified for joint in-depth data collection saying that it provides a remarkable devolution history that started with wrangles in 2013 but rose to become a hub for benchmarking by other counties and various development partners.

He spoke on Thursday when together with his team met the Makueni top officials led by Deputy Governor Adelina Mwau during the study overview meeting at Wote.

The DG welcomed the study saying that it will serve as an evaluation to the County and be able to learn from the challenges and make devolution work even better.

“This study is welcome in Makueni because it will act as mid-evaluation for us since we started in 2013. Through the findings, we will be able to make devolution even work better as we look forward to leaving a strong foundation after our exit in 2022,” Mwau stated.

The World bank team will work with County officers in thematic areas of water, health, education, agriculture and urban development. Other counties that will be part of the study include Nairobi, Garissa, Nyandarua and Kisumu.

Makueni Contemplates International Justice over two KPC Oil Spills

Fear of diseases, loss of water sources, loss of huge tracts of land under irrigation and fish farms, temporary collapse of KALRO-Kiboko research centre are some of the challenges residents of Kiboko area, Makueni County, have to contend with following a massive oil spill from the new oil pipeline by Kenya Pipeline Company.

The spilled oil is feared to have infiltrated into Kiboko river, the major source of water to area residents which besides domestic uses is used for medium scale horticulture and aquafarming.

Although the spillage was discovered on March 30th,2019, it is feared that this might have started immediately after laying of the 450KM Mombasa-Nairobi pipeline late last year.

Acting KPC Managing Director Hudson Andambi says a point of weakness in the pipeline might have been caused by a large boulder hitting it during backfilling of the pipeline trench, which overtime developed into a crack letting out thousands of gallons of oil.

Those not entirely convinced by this theory believe that the leakage could also have resulted from a malicious puncturing of the pipeline by vandals intending to siphon oil from the line.

Without any installed digital or electronic leakage detectors, the leakage is feared to have gone on for days on end until 30th March 2019 when an officer of the Water Resource Users Association (WRUA) Kiboko, on routine patrol discovered it.

In a meeting of top KPC managers led by the MD, Makueni County Government led by Governor Kivutha Kibwana and the affected community on Tuesday at Kiboko, several measures to address the menace were outlined.

Among these include Human and livestock longitudinal study on the possible impact of the hydrocarbons to their health; Joint testing by all stakeholders for possible water pollution by oil, grease, Total Petroleum Hydrocarborns (TPH), and Benzene, Toluene, Ethyl benzene & Xylene (BTEX).

The meeting also saw formation of a taskforce that will spearhead provision of water for domestic use and livestock as well as environmental cleanup by the polluter.

Governor Kibwana who scolded the KPC officials for mishandling the compensation and cleanup exercise of Thange oil spill still within the county two years ago said KPC was taking the oil spill disaster lightly while it posed grave danger to the health and livelihoods of area residents.

 “We are staring at dangers of cancer and grounding of huge economic activities, the only source of livelihoods for thousands of residents.” Said the governor.

 “These two oil spills are a disaster so atrocious that it can even attract legal suit at the International Court of Justice. We may be forced to look that direction because we seem not to get local solutions,” the governor said further.

He said the County Government would write to KPC and the ministry of Petroleum demanding for restoration of the water sources or compensation for loss of livelihoods for the period the affected farms would lay forlorn with a fixed time frame.

Kibwana said the Thange oil leakage experience had shown that KPC has little regard for humanity despite millions of shillings it makes from the same people.

Kibwana in Talks with ICPAK for Financial Management Collaboration

Governor Kivutha Kibwana on Friday held talks with top management officers of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya (ICPAK) who paid him a courtesy call at Wote.

The talks centered on possible areas of collaboration between the county government and the accountancy regulator with a view to strengthening financial management systems.

Among the identified areas of collaboration include accounting personnel capacity building, establishment of a CPA centre and KCA University satellite campus in Wote, own source revenue growth, financial risks management and training of SMEs, FSAs on financial growth.

Kibwana has pledged that the county government would make available five acres of land for establishment of the CPA centre and KCA University Campus in the 2019/20 budget cycle.

The ICPAK delegation was led by Chief Executive Officer Edwin Makori and the manager, Devolution and Branches Public Policy and Research Division Hillary Onami.