Senator Sheikh Abbas elected as Senate Devolution Committee chairperson

Wajir Senator Abbas Mohamed during the pre-swearing sessions of the 4th Senate at the Senate grounds, Parliament buildings, Nairobi on September 8, 2022. [Elvis Ogina, Standard]

Wajir Senator Sheikh Abbas and Nominated Senator Soipan Tuya have been elected as Devolution and Inter-Governmental Relations Committee Chairperson and Vice Chairperson respectively.

Abbass said that the urgent priority for the committee is ensuring that Ward Development Fund is activated so as to ensure that Members of County Assembly across the country are able to oversight their respective Governors and are not held at ransom.

The Wajir Senator who has served as Wajir East MP in the past said that he believed that President William Ruto had not created a Devolution Ministry in order to allow the Counties to thrive and that he believed that the committee will step in the gap to address matters concerning the counties.

"Our urgent priority is to ensure that we have the Ward Development Fund actualized so as to have our Members of County Assemblies across the country being able to oversight governors without the fear of their wards being denied development opportunities to make them unpopular," said Abbass.

Kisii Senator Richard Onyonka said that they are going to liaise with the national treasury to ensure matters to do with the delay of disbursement of funds to the counties are addressed since this has hampered operations in the counties in the past.

Onyonka said that most County Assemblies were not well informed in running their affairs and that it would be the role of the committee to ensure that they are well informed and ensure that Governors do not bully them to make unpopular decision that will negatively affect their counties.

Siaya Senator Oburu Oginga called on Abass to perform his duties without any fear since it was their duty to ensure that devolution succeeded and also keep the county governments on toes so that they can perform their duties as expected with the key goal being service delivery to the citizens.

"Our first duty as the Devolution and Intergovernmental Relations Committee is to ensure that our County Assemblies work independently so that they can be able to keep their respective County Governments on toes they should not work as an appendage to the administrations," said Oburu.

Committee Members Senators; Mohamed Chute (Marsabit), Peris Tobiko (Nominated), George Mbugua (Nominated), Hezena Lemaletian (Nominated), and Catherine Mumma (Nominated), pledged to support the committee leadership to deliver on its mandate.

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