MCAs in Taita Taveta county now want Governor Andrew Mwadime to swiftly name the remaining four county executive committee members and appoint county chief officers.
Deputy Speaker Anselim Mwadime said the delay in constituting the county's Cabinet has delayed service delivery in the county.
He said the governor has gone silent about filling the vacant positions despite being given the list of successful candidates to the position of chief officers by the county public service board (CPSB).
Mwadime lamented that the delayed appointment might spoil the assembly’s good working records thus making them to start facing rejection at their wards.
“There are many mistakes that the previous assembly committed. As a result, 15 members lost the election, we do not want to commit the same mistake,” he warned.
In November last year, the ward reps approved six out of ten members nominated by the governor to the positions of CECs. The four positions have remained vacant since then with some CECs being allocated to hold the docket in acting capacity.
The assembly rejected the nomination of Peter Mnene (Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation), Christine Mwashighadi (Devolution, Public Service and Administration), Peter Mwandawiro (Public Works, Infrastructure and Transport) and Josephine Mwatibo (Trade, Tourism, Cooperatives Development and Industrialization).
In their report, the MCAs said the nominee were rejected for lack of enough managerial skills, lack of touch with the ground and inability to manage county staff.
However, the deputy speaker faulted the governor for delaying the process of constituting the Cabinet despite several engagements with the MCAs.
“He was expected to nominate other members and forward their names to the County Assembly for vetting. However, he has not made any pronouncement on the same, four months later,” the Mwanda/Mghange MCA said.
The deputy speaker said the assembly will not relent on the push to have governor Mwadime appoint the officials.
On the other hand, the county chief officers’ contracts expired last month and their positions are now being held by department directors in an acting capacity.
The chief officers worked under former governor Granton Samboja.
“The assembly has privately engaged the governor several times on the issue. If nothing is done then we shall start sharing our displeasure in public meetings. Unfortunately, that is not the way we had agreed to operate,” the deputy speaker added.
He was speaking during a prayer breakfast meeting at the county assembly in Wundanyi on Tuesday ahead of the resumption of sittings.
Speaker Wisdom Mwamburi reiterated that they will work closely with the Executive to spur development in the devolved unit.
He asked all county leaders to jointly work on common course of bringing development and finding a solution to the bedeviling issues in the county.
