RAFT MEASURES: Waititu pleads with MCAs to support him make Kiambu the ‘model county’.
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| Governor Ferdinand Waititu Baba Yao addressing the County Assembly on Tuesday where he urged the MCAs to support his government's agenda for Kiambu. |
Governor Ferdinand Waititu Baba Yao has urged Kiambu Members
of County Assembly (MCAs) to fully support his government in enacting ‘Wanjiku friendly’ laws as he endeavoured
to involve the common mwananchi in all governance programmes in his administration.
While addressing the house on Tuesday during the ceremonial
opening of the first session of the 2nd assembly, Gov. Waititu promised
to make a raft of changes in his new administration and overhaul the workings
of the devolved unit to ensure that the county achieved profound transformation.
Waititu highlighted his administration’s key focus areas for
the next five years which included infrastructural development, provision of
clean water to all sub-counties, creating an enabling environment to business
and entrepreneurship, empowerment of youth and persons with disabilities among
others.
He appealed to the MCAs to support all budgetary estimates brought
before the house so as to aid in actualising his vision for the county.
On the road infrastructural programme, the governor promised to buy one grader for each
constituency to make sure that all impassible roads were upgraded besides tarmacking
all access roads across the county.
Acknowledging that about 60% of the county’s population
depended on agriculture, the governor said that they will lay a lot of emphasis
in this sector to ensure that they were food secure through sinking of dams for
irrigation in the semi and arid areas of the county.
They said that they had a major programme to revive cash
crop farming to improve both production and marketing, especially for coffee
and tea as they expanded the growing of macadamia and avocados among others
whose demand in the international market was on the increase.
“We will also set up a value addition factories so that
pineapples in Gakoe and bananas from Ng’enda will fetch higher prices for our
farmers. We intend to attract local and international investors who will, in
the next 200 days, establish a world-class bacon factory in Kiambu,” said Waititu.
On health, Waititu said that his government will work
closely with all stakeholders to improve on the county’s health services and
ensure that drugs were made available to hospitals. He added that they will
embark on a programme to upgrade and improve infrastructure in all the health
facilities within the county.
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| A group photo of the members of the County Assembly and the Executive led by His Excellency Gov. Ferdinand Waititu. |
Waititu promised to work with the national government and other
stakeholders to ensure that they formed a common strategy for education that
would help improve the standards of education from Early Childhood (ECDE) to
the university level.
The Kiambu government also plans to take advantage of the
basic infrastructure such as the proposed Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) in Nachu
Kikuyu Constituency to develop industrial parks that will help them create
wealth and jobs for the youth.
“My government will buying about 500 acres of land to set up
industrial parks, the first to in Nachu in Ndeiya sub-county where the SGR is
expected to pass through. We will also embark on visibility studies and
mobilisation of resources for the establishment of a modern bacon factory in
Uplands and establish a food security programme with special emphasis on arid
and semi-arid areas of Ndeiya, Karai, Ngoliba and Gatuanyaga to enhance
food production in those areas,” said the Kiambu governor.
Waititu promised to review and revise all levies, charges
and licences through public participation so as to improve the business
environment and attract more investors into the county.
“We will also provide clean and adequate drinking water to
all the residents of Kiambu County, fast-track the issuance of title deeds and
review the county physical building act through public participation with a
view of developing rules that that encourage proper development and other
related construction works so as to enhance employment and wealth creation,” he
said.
He emphasised on the need to have the separate organs of the
government to work closely together to achieve development goal and requested the
assembly to approve all bills that the administration plans to table before the
house in order to fast track delivery efforts.
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