Kilifi county leadership takes over 46 CDF health centres
Kilifi Governor Amason Kingi (left) listens to the county's chief officer in charge of water, Samuel Kombe (right) at Waa Dam in Kaloleni on July 13, 2016. PHOTO | KAZUNGU SAMUEL | NATION MEDIA GROUP
What you need to know:
- County Secretary Owen Baya says Kilifi county government's aim is to have functional health centres within the county with key services such as maternity wards and operational theatres.
- He says it has rehabilitated 23 health facilities.
Kilifi county's leadership has taken over the management of 46 health facilities, which were financed by the Constituency Development Fund (CDF), County Secretary Owen Baya said on Tuesday.
This comes barely a week after Governor Amason Kingi ordered county engineers to bring down all the sub-standard structures funded by the CDF.
“Our aim is to have functional health centres within the county with key services such as maternity wards and operational theatres,” Dr Baya said after touring Bamba Sub-County Hospital. “It will ease the stress on referral services, which might be far."
He said: “We have rehabilitated 23 health facilities, initially under the CDF, which had been abandoned by the MPs".
Dr Baya said no project meant to benefit the people would be left out.
“We shall make sure that all the facilities are well-equipped. Most of these were abandoned just because of lack of funds or they were given a wide berth by new legislators, who wanted to initiate their own.”
WARD REPRESENTATIVES
Dr Baya was accompanied by Ganze Ward Representative Japhet Nzaro and his Sokoke counterpart Teddy Mwambire.
“Some projects commenced in 2003 with the support of the Local Authority Trust Fund,” said Mr Mwambire. “They reverted to the CDF but construction stalled after MPs abandoned the projects.”
Ndigiria Dispensary and Jilla Health Centre in Ganze and Ndatani Dispensary in Kaloleni were abandoned by MPs but county government revived them, said County Chief Officer for Health Timothy Malingi.
Meanwhile, nine Members of the County Assembly on Tuesday differed over Governor Kingi’s directive last week. Four rejected Mr Kingi’s order as dangerous and a recipe for a dispute between the county and national government.
Tezo MCA Cosmas Foleni said Mr Kingi’s remarks were politically motivated. He said a building at Gede Polytechnic had existed since 2011 and wondered why Mr Kingi was raising the matter now.
“Why did he choose Dabaso, where Kilifi North MP Gedion Mung’aro comes from, to launch a scathing attack on the constituency development projects?” he wondered.
Mr Mung’aro is one of the rebel ODM lawmakers at the Coast.
