A civil society group advocating for freedom of information in Nakuru County plans to stop public participation on budget making.
The group, Freedom of Information (FOI) Network, says the county government and the assembly do not engage public as required by law.
It says that it will petition both institutions until proper structures that will ensure good public participation are put in place.
Speaking on Thursday in Nakuru, Daniel Mutahi from Bahati and Vincent Tanui from Nakuru Town West who are members of the group said that during the 2014/2015 budget making process, there was poor public participation.
“These public participations are done at the sub-county level. We want this to be done at least at the ward level so that the voice of people down at the village can be heard. Again, more often, politicians mobilise their own people to attend public participation meetings, hence it becomes an easy ride in approving projects they want,” said Mutahi who is also the chairperson of Truth, Justice and Reconciliation committee of the PCEA Church in Nakuru.
He added that much of the development at the ward level especially in the implementation of the project is not people driven.
“The priorities are upside down. For example, why do we need to spend Sh2 million on a public toilet yet in the same area, another public toilet was built by the same county government at a cost of Sh1.8 million? Surely this is pure waste of public funds,” he said.
Tanui said wananchi should be allowed to access the information and given more time to go through it.
“Mostly, what happens is that the county government officials allocate little time for wananchi to give their views on the budget yet they have not accessed the whole document. On the other hand, they give two or three voluminous copies of the budget to read and give views in that short period of time. This is impossible. Eventually what is normally approved is what the MCA’s want and not the wananchi,” said Tanui who is also a trained paralegal.
Some of the proposed public participation structures by the two include enactment of public participation law by the assembly and creating awareness of the process through a proper mode of communication.
The two also took issue with corruption through procurement in the county government saying that most of the contractors are the MCA’s, county officials or their allies.
“Take for example the case of building ECD classrooms at Mogoon school. One classroom cost Sh1.2 million but the four classrooms were left incomplete despite the money being paid fully to the contractor,” Tanui said.