Nairobi, Tuesday 29th June, 2021
Nairobi City County Deputy Governor and Acting Governor H.E Ann Kananu today attended the Full Council of Governors (CoG) 8th State of Devolution address at the Villa Rosa Kempinski hotel.
In his address, the Chair, Council of Governors H.E Hon. Martin Wambora said that County Governments have continued to achieve remarkable success in the various devolved functions in the period under review( 2020/2021) despite the challenges posed by the outbreak of the Covid -19 pandemic.
Said Hon. Wambora, “Inorder to address the socio – economic challenges resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic, the CoG in conjunction with partners developed the County social economic recovery and re- engineering strategy.”
Wambora stressed that delayed disbursement of equitable share to the County Governments by the National Treasury posed major challenges leading to:-
- non compliance of county governments regarding timely payments of employees salaries and remittance of employees statutory deductions
- delayed settlement of eligible pending bills
- derailment of counties response measures towards emergencies and negatively affecting service delivery.
Cabinet Secretary Eugene Wamalwa lauded the 47 County Governments for ensuring Service delivery to the citizens. He said in the middle of a crisis counties improved provision of health care by ensuring proper availability of emergency equipment and highly qualified personnel in County hospitals.
Said Wamalwa, “Looking at the state of devolution, counties have a lot of success stories which need to be celebrated.”
Also present was the Danish Ambassador to Kenya H.E. Ole Thonke who represented the International Community. H.E Thonke said that devolution is key element of ensuring equal development, adding that there is a lot to be proud of but still a lot of work to be done.
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