A section of Trans Nzoia County residents has hailed the national government’s decision to involve members of the public in the budget-making process.
The locals made the observation Wednesday when they spoke to the press on the sidelines of a stakeholder’s participation in the FY 2024/2025 – 2026/2027 medium-term budget-making process forum held at Kitale National Polytechnic.
According to the locals, the forum provided an opportunity for them to highlight salient and specific issues, which they considered significant in spurring economic growth and development in the County that has been described as the country’s food basket.
“We are extremely happy by the government’s decision to allow public participation in the budget-making process as dictated by the constitution,” remarked Mr. Jack Wafula, a local who represented people living with disabilities.
Jack appealed to the national treasury to help reduce the cost of production currently incurred by farmers by supporting agriculture-based counties by setting aside adequate funds for infrastructural development and procurement of the necessary farm inputs.
He identified the installation of cereal dryers as one of the urgently required infrastructures by farmers, especially in the maize-growing counties of Trans Nzoia and Uasin Gishu.
“We still urge the government to further reduce the price of fertilizer to enable more farmers to increase the acreage of land under the maize crop,” appealed Wafula even as he expressed farmers’ gratitude over the government’s decision for the fertilizer subsidy this year.
Presenting views to the forum, it was evident majority of area residents want the national treasury to allocate more funds to the agriculture sector to enable farmers in the region to scale up production of various food and cash crops.
Education and health were some of the other sectors the area residents suggested should be allocated more funding in the country’s annual budgets.
The forum, which assembled various stakeholders, was led by Defense Principal Secretary (PS) Patrick Mariru and Trasnzoia County Commissioner (CC) Gideon Oyagi.
Mariru thanked the locals for turning in numbers before presenting their views to the forum.
“We have listened and noted the desires and wishes of the Trans Nzoia people. We assure them their collated views would be included in the final document that will be presented to relevant authorities for action and implementation,” said Mariru.
Oyagi reiterated the government’s commitment to involving citizen participation in development plans.
