Cross referencing among counties should be the spirit of devolution, Murang’a Governor Mwangi wa Iria has said.
Wa Iria was addressing Machakos MCAs who were on a
visit of Murang’a dairy farming infrastructure on Thursday.
The governor said there would be little need to benchmark in foreign countries if counties benchmarked with their neighbours.
The ward representatives toured the county’s multimillion-shilling milk plant at Maragua.
The plant was put up by the county government to process milk and promote value addition.
The MCAs, mostly members of the budget and appropriations committee, said they will use lessons learnt in production of fruits.
Machakos produces a lot of mangoes. Committee chairman Dominic Ndambuki said his team learnt the importance of working together with the county executive for development.
“We have seen that for development to trickle down, we need
co-existence between the executive and the assembly,” Ndambuki said.
Most counties, including Machakos and Kitui, have governance issues between MCAs and the executive. Ndambuki said problems of devolution will be solved “as time goes by”.
Machakos Governor Alfred Mutua has accused MCAs of blackmailing him to approve a bloated budget.
Last year, Mutua did not approve Sh1.7 billion for the county assembly, saying it would amount to misappropriation of funds.
Ndambuki said MCAs have met the governor and were planning a retreat to iron out their differences.
“We are hoping all leaders will be able to work together and deliver the promises they made during elections,” he said.
Wa Iria took the MCAs around the milk plant that will be ready for production in a week’s time. It is expected that milk prices will stabilise, the governor said.
Currently county farmers sell
milk to Brookside Company at Sh35 a litre through contract farming.
“We started forming 35 dairy cooperatives and consolidating milk through coolers. Now we have a consistent supply of milk,” Wa Iria said. The plant will be managed by the Murang’a County Creameries, the umbrella sacco for all the dairy cooperatives.
It will release its first processed milk in two weeks, the governor said.
The plant is fully owned by farmers and will facilitate the school milk programme for all pupils. Each pupil will get a packet every week.
Wa Iria urged the Machakos MCAs to quickly resolve their differences with the governor and work for residents.
“That is why even the President built bridges between him and the Opposition leader for the good of all Kenyans. These small differences should not exist,” Wa Iria said.