We were not consulted, residents say as districts row slow service delivery

by Stella Mwangi and Anthony Gitonga

The creation of new districts in the vast Rift Valley province has been a source of conflicts and tension among residents.

In the past three years, the Government has established more than 30 new districts, often without consultation.

In some areas, residents do not know which district they belong in and where to go for services like registration for national identity cards. Recent recruitments of officers to carry out the population census further exposed the challenges brought about by the new districts.

No change

Nakuru District was split into five — Nakuru North, Molo, Rongai and Njoro.

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Miss Agnes Kanini from Njoro district is not a happy woman. This is the third day she has come back to Nakuru District Registrar of Persons office to try and get a national ID.

"I have been tossed between here and Njoro either to get a signature from a civil servant or a document. This is frustrating because it is not clear where I should be served," she says.

Getting an ID card, birth and death certificates, land transfers, medical attention and so on are a few of the services the Government hoped to bring closer to the people by creating the new districts.

But a year after the creation of the district resident are yet to feel any impact as nothing much has changed, they still have to go to public offices located in their old districts.

In Mogotio district, the Lembus community has moved to court rejecting creation of the district.

They argue that Mogotio and Ngumbereti locations should not be included in the new district.

They would like to remain in Koibatek District.

They say that if the two locations, which are in Mogotio constituency, are included then the constituents will be marginalised.

The residents have held demonstrations to echo their opposition to the new district.

The newly posted district commissioner is yet to set foot to the administrative zone owing to a court order barring him from doing so.

Residents in Rongai district are also up in arms over the new district.

They say that the location of the district headquarters has moved services far away from the people instead of bringing them closer.

According to Mr Joshua Cheruiyot a resident of Rongai, the district headquarters is in Kambi ya Moto, which is near Mogotio and too far from Rongai town.

"We did not want the control centre to be in Kambi ya Moto because it is very far and for people in Solai to get there they must connect through Nakuru, it makes less difference than when they were being administered from Nakuru," he says.

In Nakuru North, they depend on Nakuru District for services.

Mr John Kimani a resident of Bahati in Nakuru North says having a district means having all services available within and not outside.

"If we had our own OCPD, the crime rate in the district would go down greatly," he says.

During recruitment of civil servants especially in the disciplined forces, the new districts are a source of confusion.

During this year’s army recruitment youths from Njoro district were turned away from Afraha Stadium in Nakuru when they were told that they should attended recruitment interviews in Njoro.

And when recruitment was done in Njoro, the youth were told their area was not under Njoro and that they should have attended interviews in Nakuru.

Naivasha’s case

The story has been different in the new Naivasha District where locals have welcomed the move.

The residents had to travel to Nakuru for Government services.

With an area of 2,837sq kms, the district has the same border as Naivasha constituency which runs from Mai Mahiu to Stem Hotel in Nakuru.

This makes it one of the largest districts.

Lack of office space has seen many heads of departments squeezed in a colonial building that is the district headquarters.

Many of the departments are understaffed and do not have vehicles making their movement even harder.

"The office of the DC handles all logistic and transport and I make sure that heads of departments share equally the available vehicles," said area DC Mohammed Birik.

Civil servants are apprehensive that funds will be allocated this financial year for the construction of a new headquarters.

Already, construction of a law court is underway and they could be operation by the end of this year.