Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen has attributed the delay in operationalising newly gazetted administrative units to financial constraints and inadequate infrastructure.
According to the CS, some 45 sub-counties, 291 divisions, 1,439 locations and 2,693 sub locations had been gazetted but remain inactive.
Speaking when he appeared before the National Assembly plenary, Murkomen, however, stated that the ministry is currently developing guidelines to streamline the process and prevent future gazettement of administrative units that are not budgeted for.
“The said regulations will be subjected to public participation and thereafter forwarded to this House for consideration,” he stated.
Acknowledging the need to enhance access to services, the CS disclosed that they plan to operationalise 24 sub-counties, including 88 divisions, 318 locations and 675 sub-locations this financial year.
“As you can deduce from these figures, there are 21 sub-counties, 203 divisions, 1,121 locations and 2,018 sublocations that will be pending operationalisation after this financial year,” he said.
“The budget for operationalization of new units was not allocated this financial year, and the Ministry has been utilizing budgetary allocations for development and recurrent to ensure services are delivered.”
He emphasised the importance of these units in enhancing security, public service accessibility, and citizen participation.
The phased operationalisation, he explained, is guided by criteria such as insecurity levels, geographical vastness, population pressure, demand for government services and inclusivity and minority representation.
Other considerations are anomalous administrative units- where a sub-county has only one division, implying that an Assistant County Commissioner and a Deputy County Commissioner cover the same area of jurisdiction and available infrastructure.
Murkomen, at the same time, commended the members of parliament for leveraging the NG-CDF to put up infrastructure for new administrative units.
He stated that this has greatly complemented their operationalisation efforts.
