The County government is going to employ village administrators in a new move aimed at ensuring that county government services reach to the communities at the grassroots level.
Kilifi Governor Gideon Mung’aro said the county is only awaiting a nod from the county public service board for them to start employing them.
Constitutionally all county governments are supposed to have village administrators in line with the devolution agenda meant to reach the common people at the grassroots.
He was addressing the media in his office after a meeting with Sub county and ward administrators from the county.
“We are waiting for the public service board to give us way forward on this issue. It’s important that we have these officers who play a critical role in the realisation of county governments development agenda. They were never employed in the past regime but with my regime, we shall change this scenario,” he said.
In order to enhance service delivery in the grassroots the Governor announced a number of reforms that will be done concerning the administrators, one of them being taking them for trainings skills on better service delivery.
“We have discovered that despite their critical role in county delivery plans, they were being overlooked and were mostly put on the dark over their responsibilities. That affected service delivery since most of them never knew even some of the development projects that were being undertaken in their respective regions. With this regime, a total transformation is in the offing to enable them work as team. We are streamlining that so that they can be busy also,” he said.
Magarini Sub County administrator Richard Lwambi said there has been challenges in the past that scuttled their efforts in service delivery. He however expressed hope that with the new regime in place, their issues shall be addressed.
“Some of the challenges we faced was poor coordination between the county head office and our team on the ground. That has been the biggest undoing. There were some programs that were being run, some bypassing the Sub county administrator and their teams at the ward level. But we are happy that the Governor has picked up the issue and assured us that there will be now proper coordination between his office and our offices. That is going to streamline our services to the people,” said Mr Lwambi.
He further said that as the custodians of the county activities and programs at their level, they expect a clear way that will ease their working condition.
“We know there was past confusion about the role of MCAs in county projects but from now henceforth, the Governor has assured us that the reforms will bring change and enhance service delivery,” he said.
Matsangoni ward administrator Andrew Thuva said their engagement with the Governor has opened new hopes for fast service delivery, saying that in the past, they were in the dark about county activities in their wards.
“The biggest challenge we faced was the sidelining in terms of county projects.
“Most departments carrying out projects in our wards mostly never notified us of any projects they were undertaking. Due to this situation, we were also never made aware of what was going on. It’s sad that our functions are well elaborated in the constitution but it was being overlooked,” he said.
Mr Thuva said they would most of the time tucked in projects supremacy between them and the MCAs, a rift he said resulted in many challenges over county projects.
“Because we could not fetch information about projects and programs undertaken in our wards, many projects failed because we could not account on them,” he said.
The administrator who is also the chairman of the Council of ward administrators of Kenya Kilifi chapter added that they had addressed the issue to the Governor who promised to act on them.
“We have also welcomed the pending employment of village administrators since the move will ensure that county services are felt on the ground. Some of the wards are expansive and if we can have these administrators at the village level, will help a lot in information dissemination concerning the county,” he said.
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