ADDRESS BY H.E THE GOVERNOR OF MERU COUNTY HON BISHOP KAWIRA MWANGAZA

Date: 19^th OCTOBER 2022.

The Hon. Speaker of the County Assembly, the Deputy Governor, Honourable Members of the County Assembly of Meru, officers of the National Government and County Government present, good afternoon.

It is an honour and privilege to stand before you the Honourable speaker and the Honourable Members of the Assembly and address you as the 3^rd Governor of the great County of Meru. In deed this is the team that the people of Meru County have placed trust in to steer the development agenda of the County in the next five years. Let us cease this moment and make good our promises and manifestos that we shared with our people in the just concluded campaign periods. I acknowledge that we are all here, the Honourable Speaker, the Honourable Members of the Assembly, my Deputy Governor and I, as a result of an electoral process that was rigorous, involving and highly competitive. I salute you all for emerging out victors.

I have no doubt that this assembly will conduct itself with a deep sense of responsibility and purpose and that the reputation and the dignity of this assembly as well as the high standards of debates will be an example to be emulated by other County Assemblies. We are living in times of high expectations of Meru County people from the elected representatives to the County Executive; we therefore need to strive for an increased growth for the County, while ensuring that this growth is socially inclusive. We should ensure that each of us win translates to a win for the Meru people.

Mr speaker sir, let me once again take this opportunity to congratulate you for your election as the speaker of this Assembly and the faith in your leadership that these Honourable members demonstrated in electing you. It is my prayer that you will guide this Assembly to diligently carry out its mandate as stipulated in our Constitution and the County Government Act for the benefit of the great people of our county. I will lead the rallying call of unity and harmonious working relationship between the County Assembly and the executive wing to reach a mutual goal for a mutual force, which is development to the people of Meru County. The crucial role of the Assembly in aiding the executive to achieve its objectives cannot be overemphasized. Through your diverse roles in representation and oversight, the rights, freedoms and the benefits of the Meru people as enshrined in our constitution is assured. We will from time and again present to you honourable members, various bills and policies for legislation and approval. It is my appeal to you Honourable Speaker and the honourable members of this Assembly to be facilitators of policies that will ensure that we address various social, economic and financial challenges facing our people. Your oversight role in governance and implementation of development programs will ensure that they are executed in adherence to the laid down constitutional procedures and I invite you to play that crucial oversight role in the next five years.

Mr. Speaker sir and the Honourable Members, our people look up to us to be able to provide leadership that changes and improves our lives for the better. This is something that I am committed to and urge all of us to bear in mind, in execution of our duties in various decisions we make political or otherwise. The essence of devolution was for decisions to be made by leaders at the local levels within their own government. This cannot work when some of us allow to be controlled on remote by outsiders. History will not judge us kindly if all we do is make political statements, organize demos, spread propaganda and initiate stalemates in pursuing personal selfish gratifications at the expense of our Meru people.

Mr. Speaker sir and the Honourable Members, we will be judged kindly or harshly according to what we initiate as development and how we make our people richer. I therefore, urge you to commit to work together with us for the benefit of our people. We need not to flip flop and keep on changing goal posts according to the whims and likes of outside masters who are not members of this County Assembly or part of the Meru County government. We need solid and principled leaders and our actions should follow our verbal commitment and plan. The fact that only 9 Members of the County assembly out of 45 Wards have been re-elected in this Assembly, serves to show us that our people will not forgive us if we fail them. Honourable Members, the only choice we have is to deliver to our people on our promises; on my part and with your harmonious working relation, I will deliver.

Mr. Speaker sir, it is imperative to make it clear that we have inherited a County with approximately 6,000 employees with a bloated wage bill to deal with. We have noted in the interim that there was a lot of duplication of roles among the employees hired by my predecessor. To that end we are in two months arrears of the County Government employees salaries; matters which are well within your knowledge. The County Government has had time and again to rely on overdraft to settle employees wages. We shall put necessary mechanism to curb this. has been paid in arrears of two months. Our County has also not been spared by these pending bills pandemic. My government has inherited pending bills in sums of approximately Kenya Shillings 1.2 Billion; this includes a decree of approximately 450 Million from court emanating from a dispute between the County Government of Meru and Leopard Rock Mico Limited; a dispute that I opine was a result of pursuit of personal gratification by my predecessor at the high expense of the County Government.

Mr. Speaker sir, in delivering my promises to the Meru people, my administration intends to focus on the following in the intervening period;

In agriculture; well aware that farming is the backbone of our economy, we intend to to promote food security and agro-Processing by enhancing access to affordable farm inputs and subsidized services. We shall negotiate better markets for food and cash crops such as Miraa, tea, coffee, dairy products, and macadamia through direct sales, exchange bodies and cooperatives. I am specifically aware that our miraa farmers have been complaining of heavy tariffs and multiplicity of taxes that they have to pay in order to export their products to Somalia, which is our main market. Some of the traders have also had to negotiate and pay expensive commission to faceless cartels in order to export their products. My administration intends to work harmoniously with the National Government to eliminate the faceless cartels and the tariff embargoes and reduce the burden on the farmers. We shall do Value addition to Meru agricultural products.

In health, my administration will focus on staff recruitment, placement, training, promotion and reviewing terms of employment of the existing staff to boost their morale. further, my administration will improve access to health care by streamlining access to drugs and services, and establishing dedicated youth-friendly centres and palliative care units in all the sub-county hospitals.

In education; my administration is keen in ensuring that we provide quality and affordable ECDE and vocational training for all by implementing a school feeding program in ECDE and increasing retention of learners in high school and tertiary education. As we are aware that our students have been heavily depending on the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) bursaries for school fees, it is important as a County we rethink of a stopgap solution to the declaration of the CDF as nconstitutional by the recent Supreme Court decision, even as our president has promised to address this underlying issue. It will be my proposal that we consolidate County Bursary allocations to ensure equitable distribution and that we introduce a scholarship program for our needy students.

Mr. Speaker sir, I invite the Honourable Members of the assembly that we formulate a joint consultative forum on the modalities of establishing a workable Ward Development Fund for each ward within the confines of the law. This will also ensure that the elected County Assembly Members are able to address the surging demands of the electorates. I shall also be engaging the nominated Members of the Assembly in projects at the grassroot levels so as to appreciate their position and role in development of our County and shed the moniker tag of flower gals that has been associated with political parties nominees.

In transport sector, my administration intends to develop and operationalize a robust Integrated County Transport Infrastructure Master plan covering road and transport connectivity by constructing new roads, maintaining the existing roads by murraming and tarmacking roads. I shall also be pushing the national government to fast track the construction of dual carriage across Meru town to ease the traffic jams witnessed in our main town daily.

In business sector, my administration has already taken deliberate steps to reduce the cost of doing business in the County by promoting reforms in the County government tax regime through harmonization of fees and elimination of other non-tariff barriers to trade. I urge the Honourable members to take steps in reviewing the County by-laws which will improve the ease of doing business in our County.

To the youth and women, my administration shall support vocational trainings to enhance skills development in vocational training centres and other training institutions to promote youth employability. In addition, we shall enhance the County youth internship programme to provide necessary skills and linkage between academia and the fast-evolving needs of the industrial environment. We shall also support the operationalization of the Gender-Based Violence (GBV) rescue and rehabilitation centres in collaboration with relevant stakeholders even as we formulate, approve and implement a County Gender Policy. We shall give youth, women and PWDs seed capital to start businesses through the SMES.

On water conservation; we shall put measures of water harvesting and preservation as well as constructing of water retention and tailing dams to ensure that we have sufficient water. We shall also be supporting existing community water projects and launching new water projects to ensure that we deliver pipe water to all households within our County.

Mr. Speaker sir, on tourism and investment; I am grateful to God for the favor and grace, partners and donors are now reaching out and demonstrating willingness to partner with the County Government in humanitarian projects. This is a result of our transparent and accountable way of discharging our mandate. I am determined to be very transparent and accountable in the manner in which projects in the county will be carried out. Public participation, transparency, accountability among other national values and principles of governance shall be the way of doing things.

Mr. speaker sir, to achieve all that I will require all hands on the deck. I have nominated and forwarded for approval by you honourable members a list of gallant and qualified personnel that I wish to join me in the executive in discharge of my duties as the County Executive Committee. I urge you Honourable Members, to vet objectively and expedite the process so that we can hit the ground running together.

To the honourable members of this 3^rd County Assembly, I invite you to exercise your oversight role objectively, I shall seek, not scorn dialogue; listen respectfully to contrary views; be open to suggestions coming from hard thinking and unsparing judgment from you honourable members. As your independent elected County Governor, I will seek to work with everyone oblivious of your political affiliations or the party that has sponsored you to the Assembly. Come all, let us put our shoulders to the wheel; and give that wheel a faster turn to repair and to rebuild; and to address challenges in new ways; to provide what all our Meru County people need; to be all that we can. We are here to repair a house divided; to make it whole and to stand strong again. So, let us all be part of the solution that we choose; in that lies the power to get it done. Always be open to differing views but ever united in our chosen goal.

Let me once again wish you success in the discharge of your mandate, as we work together to Make Meru People Happy. Meru must be happy.

Thank you.

God bless you all, and God bless Meru County. Thank you.