Nyeri County Commissioner, Pius Murugu, has hinted at the return of chiefs’ baraza meetings as a way of fast-tracking the process of cascading government development projects and policies to the grassroots.

According to Murugu, there is a communication lapse which has left members of the public in the dark regarding the progress of development projects being undertaken by the national government within their vicinity.

The administrator has also attributed public perceptions that devolved units were doing more compared to the national government, to their low awareness levels regarding the government’s undertakings at the grassroots level.

‘I know a lot of projects are being undertaken and the people are not aware of what is happening. So we need to revive the village barazas so that we can connect ourselves with the people and appraise the wananchi on whatever projects the government is implementing on the ground,’ said Murugu.

The government has in the recent past come under sharp criticism for launchin
g new projects without completing stalled ones. The administration has also been called out for wasting taxpayers’ money by paying contractors for non-existing or stalled projects.

But speaking when he presided over the monthly Nyeri County Implementation Coordination and Management Committee meeting (NGD-CICMC), Murugu said the government had come up with a new model of monitoring the progress of all its projects.

The County Commissioner said that national government administration officers (NGAOs) will be partnering with heads of Ministries, Departments, and Agencies to supervise and report back on the progress of the projects.

They will also help in identifying the challenges bedeviling the projects, which will then be escalated to the implementing ministries. In addition, he said that NGAOs and the heads of MDAs will also be tasked with the responsibility of communicating national government programmes to the people.

‘This committee will be responsible for monitoring and ensuring that the development
projects of the national government are progressing seamlessly. From time to time, the NGAOs will be calling upon the department heads so that they are able to represent their departments in communicating what the government is doing,’ he stated.

‘We shall be having various meetings so we can be able to track the implementation of these projects. Some of the concerns are that a lot of projects are not progressing because even with the NGAOs represented at the sub-county level, they were not able to report what is happening. That is why we are engaging them so that we are able to appraise ourselves and the government on the progress of these projects,’ said Murugu.

During the meeting, it emerged that in Nyeri, the government will be following up on 324 projects at various levels of implementation. The committee heard that out of these, 37 have been allocated funds in the 2024/2025 financial year.

It was also reported that the Head of State, Dr. William Ruto, had launched a total of nine projects since being
sworn in office in September 2022. Out of the 9 projects, two had already been budgeted for.

Additionally, the committee will also be monitoring the progress of some 287 legacy projects, of which a total of 19 have already been budgeted for, with the administrator calling on the department heads to ensure that they report on the correct status of the projects.

‘It is important for us to have the actual status of the project to allow the National Treasury to budget appropriately. We have a number of ‘stalled’ projects which have been reported as ‘ongoing’ which does not reflect the true picture on the ground. This also portrays the wrong image of government,’ stated the County Commissioner.

Source: Kenya News Agency