Marsabit: The collection of views on whether the National Government Constituency Development Fund (NG-CDF) should be retained through a legal backup or be done away with has concluded in Marsabit County with residents taking a united stand for its retention. The public participation sessions that were held in the four constituencies of Laisamis, North Horr, Moyale, and Saku saw residents and the local Members of Parliament unanimously call for the entrenchment of the Amendment Bill No.4, 2025, into the Constitution.
According to Kenya News Agency, at the Marsabit Catholic Conference Hall, the residents defended the existence of the NG-CDF, the National Government Affirmative Action Fund (NGAAF), and supported the creation of the Senate Oversight Fund (SOF), saying the kitties were the best-suited vehicles of development at the grassroots level. In the Saku constituency alone, NG-CDF has initiated 512 development projects, which include improvement of infrastructure in schools, feeder roads, government offices, water connections, and education bursaries to thousands of vulnerable children.
Saku Member of Parliament Dido Ali Raso and Women Representative Naomi Waqo led the locals in backing the amendments through a legal framework. According to Moi Girls High School Principal Halima Adan, 80 percent of students in the school solely depended on the NGCDF and NGAAF for their school fees, given that they come from poor backgrounds occasioned by persistent droughts.
The NGAAF has changed the lives of vulnerable members of the feminine gender where homesteads have been provided with tanks to harvest and store water, women groups empowered through the donation of tools for income generation like tents and chairs, table banking support and the initiation of tree-planting exercises to mitigate against climate change. The residents acknowledged that NGAAF had, since its inception, upheld the dignity of women through the provision of sanitary towels, besides ensuring increased enrollment and retention of the girl child in school.
‘I am a poor man, and I stand here as testimony to the fact that were it not for NGCDF, my five children could not have gone anywhere near the gate of a secondary school,’ testified a resident about the gains of the fund, adding that the children were now self-reliant because they got an education. Julius Kinoti, who lives with a disability, said the funds have made a lot of difference in the lives of his fraternity and called for the protection of the kitties through the proposed amendment and anchoring it in the constitution.
As for the SOF, the residents were in agreement that the kitty was necessary to oversee the use of billions of shillings disbursed by the National Treasury to county governments, which largely remained unsupervised, leading to plunder.