The Turkana Governor, Josphat Nanok has opposed allocation of national resources on the basis of the population size as proposed by the building bridges initiative report.
Speaking on Wednesday in Lodwar during the handing over of
funded by Tullow Oil Company to the county government, Nanok said while he supported the BBI report, the only problem with the report is that it recommends allocation of resources based on population size and not land size.
“That must be changed because republic of Kenya is made up of people of Kenya and the land of Kenya,” he added.
He said the Bill of rights talks about the right of every individual regardless of where they live adding that every Kenyan has a right to access government services.
“You cannot segregate some areas and say that they are no people so you cannot take development program to those areas. You are just reminding us of sessional paper 10 of 1965 which divided Kenya into two and denied 80 percent of the country with lower population access to development who are mainly pastoralists,” he said.
The Governor called for dialogue on the issue to forge the way forward on that contentious issue. He said those areas with few people had oil, arable land, gold, and other natural resources that would take Kenya forward.
He agreed with the proposal to increase county government funds allocation to 35 percent that would ensure counties would have more funds for development projects.
Nanok also supported the fact that county governments will also remain as they are.
While appreciating creation of the prime minister’s post, he said it would benefit the party with the majority in parliament only and that would mean those who lose national votes would still be out of government.
“The losers would only get one seat of leader of opposition, I don’t think whether that would heal the nation but let others also read the report and give their views,” said Nanok.
At the same time, Nanok said he would be moving to court together with other counties to challenge the census results, saying the population had been doctored to reduce numbers in the county.
He said over 200,000 people have been taken from our numbers citing Turkana North and Loima Sub Counties.
The Governor said population growth rate in the county is second to that of the Somali and claimed the census numbers do not add up.
Speaking at the event, the Tullow Country Manager, Martin Mbogo said the company in collaboration with the county government had constructed four hospitals in the county.
“We have been focusing on health, water and education since we came to the county eight years ago,” said Mbogo.
The hospital was constructed at a cost of Sh.161 million which includes Sh.127 million for hospital structure, Sh.5.9 million for generator and generator house, Sh15 million for electrical works, water Sh8.9 million and Sh.3.3 million for project equipment importation cost.
He added that the company had sunk 40 water boreholes that cater for the water needs of 100,000 livestock.
About 60 percent of the county residents are pastoralists.
By Peter Gitonga
