Machakos Deputy Governor Bernard Kiala is set to introduce a Bill at the County Assembly to counter corruption in the county government.
In a statement to the media on Sunday, Kiala said although corruption is a big threat to the future of Kenya, it is preventable.
“With the 2013 activation of devolved governments, corruption too got devolved. I am persuaded that corruption is more preventable at the counties than in national government. Devolved corruption is propagated by greedy county executives and ineffective county assemblies. It is also thriving because citizens lack specific information to ask the right questions,” said Kiala.
Kiala said while citizens may wait to fix corruption at the 2017 general election, they are empowered already by the Constitution to access information on how county governments spend public funds.
“Seizing this constitutional opportunity has not been easy for Wananchi. Earlier in the year, I received a copy of a petition signed by over 200 Mavoko sub county residents. They invoked article 201 of the Constitution to demand information for participating in the financial matters of county projects in their sub county. I have studied their petition and am persuaded that a positive response to their demands will be a major step towards eradicating corruption in our county,” Kiala said.
Mr Kiala said fixing the lack of unencumbered access to information on public funded projects is one of his commitments to empower Machakos residents.
“To begin with, my office is preparing a Bill for debate in the County Assembly that will enable free and transparent flow of county development project information,” reads the statement in part.
“I will call this proposed law the 'MACHAKOS DEVINFO BILL'. Its objective is to compel the current and future county executives to publish project level details on financial planning, procurement, implementation status, payment and evaluation for all development expenditure as an ongoing statutory requirement,” said he.
Kiala said with this law all development projects will be coded and their information will be updated on a quarterly