Woman Rep aspirants want Ksh.7 million CDF kitty increased

A section of Woman Representative aspirants now want the budget of the National Government Constituencies Development Fund (NG-CDF) allocated to the seat under the affirmative action kitty increased.

The aspirants, who were speaking on Citizen TV’s JKLive show on Wednesday night, said it is baffling how only Ksh.7 million is allocated to Woman Reps from NG-CDF despite the same kitty allotting Ksh.137 million to a National Assembly legislator.

Their sentiments follow the Budget and Appropriations Committee’s (BAC) March decision to allocate MPs a total of Ksh.4.9 billion as part of the NG-CDF.

According to UDA’s Kirinyaga County Woman Rep candidate Wakili Njeri, the Ksh.7 million kitty is not enough for the elected leaders to carry out administrative functions while empowering youth to venture into entrepreneurship in their respective constituencies.

“It is a very miniscule budget to give a Woman Representative given that they cater for the county and even though the Constitution provides that our seats cater for special interest groups, you find that the entire county actually believes that you were elected to do something for them and that is the expanded role of the Woman Rep,” Njeri said.

Njeri’s sentiments were shared by her Nandi County counterpart Cynthia Muge who noted that despite the introduction of devolved units and functions, the government has yet to effectively implement the notion of devolved county allocations for regional development.

“It doesn’t make sense, that is why we are here. The affirmative action fund is a small fund but the government remains with a lot of money and that is why every county has a Woman Representative elected for you to be able to go and speak on behalf of your people,” Muge said.

She however insisted that should they clinch the seats at the August polls, their first order of business would be to push to ensure that the budget allocation for the Woman Representative is upped to a level that is going for all the interests of their constituents in their respective counties.

“That is exactly why we are here, to ensure that we go to Parliament and ensure that every ear that is in every ministry in this country is able to listen and to actually act on our constituents demands. It is not our demands we are the representatives of the people,” Muge stated.

On her part, former SONU Secretary General Edith Mwirigi, who is eyeing Meru County’s Woman Representative seat on an independent ticket, noted that an increased kitty will help the leaders address the lingering problems of unemployment ravaging most parts of the country.

We need to have short term solutions to unemployment cases for young people, who engage in drug abuse as a result. We need to come up with long-term solutions for the young people and we will get there by introducing programs that put MPs to task,” she said.