Governors want Senate to fast-track passage of county development Bill
By Kepher Otieno, March 1, 2024Governors from the 14 counties that form the Lake Region Economic Bloc (LREB) have urged the Senate to fast-track the passage of County Resources Development Bill to operationalise regional economic blocs in the country.
The bill is crucial in legitimising the existence of the regional economic blocs and enable member county governments to pull resources together to fund development projects.This was one of the major concerns raised at the end of the three-day Homa Bay International Investment Conference which was opened by President William Ruto on Tuesday.
The Governors were Glady’s Wanga, (Homa Bay), James Orengo (Siaya), Simba Arati, (Kisii), Ochillo Ayacko (Migori), and Anyang Nyong’o (Kisumu) among others.
Development projects
The County chief executives observed that it was not easy as things stand for them to pull their resources and synergies to carry out common development projects.
They singled out the Lake Region Economic Bloc (LREB), which is one of the six economic Blocs adopted in Kenya as one among all, facing a lot of hurdles in doing joint projects. LREB consists of 14 counties, Homa Bay, Migori, Bomet, Bungoma, Busia, Kakamega, Kericho, Kisii, Kisumu, Nandi, Nyamira, Siaya, Trans Nzoia, and Vihiga.
Like other economic blocs in the country, LREB was established under the realisation that the counties can unite and leverage on the economies of scale.
But this is not happening now due to lack of legislation in Parliament to legitimize their joint activities in the bloc as they had proposed, technically making the blocs ineffective. Wanga (pictured) said the overall objective of LREB was to leverage economies of scale and shared resources in order to grow the economy and improve the livelihood of the people.’’
This includes developing policies and programs aimed at widening and enhancing cooperation among the member counties in economic, industrial, social, technological transfer, and research fields, for their mutual benefit.
But today, most of the joint activities proposed to be done under the blocs have stalled, thus in effect slowing down the taking off of the regional blocs.
Yesterday, former Kakamega Governor Wycliffe Oparanya asked Senators to expedite the legislation of the bill pending in the Senate to legitimise the bloc’s growth trail.
“We pushed for the bill during our time and left it at the Senate, after nearly all the counties, under LREB ratified the ideas at their respective assemblies,’’ he said.
Oparanya disclosed some of the ideas that they harboured such as establishing and/or buying majority shares at a bank, to start LREB bank could end up failing.
“We don’t want the noble idea such as starting a regional bank to go under,’’ he told the governors, asking them alongside the senators to be more proactive in follow ups.
But Homa Bay Senator Moses Kajwang revealed that Senator Catherine Mumma of the Committee on legislations, was keen pursuing the enactment of the bill.
“We the Senators are pushing for legislation to anchor the bloc entities,’’ he said and assured the governors that the bloc’s bill will be enacted into law.