By Odhiambo Jerameel Kevins Owuor
Worth Noting:
- Other functions of the County government include: Trade development and regulation, including markets; trade licences (excluding regulation of professions); fair trading practices; local tourism; and cooperative societies. County planning and development, including statistics; land survey and mapping; boundaries and fencing; housing; and electricity and gas reticulation and energy regulation.
- Pre-primary education, village polytechnics, home craft centres and childcare facilities. Implementation of specific national government policies on natural resources and environmental conservation, including soil and water conservation; and forestry.
- County public works and services, including storm water management systems in built-up areas; and water and sanitation services. Fire fighting services and disaster management
Siaya County is one of the counties in the former Nyanza Province. Siaya County is located in the Lake Victoria Basin and borders Busia County to the North, Kakamega County to the North East, Vihiga County to the East, Kisumu County to the South East with Lake Victoria to the South and West. Siaya County shares Lake Victoria with three other counties namely: Homabay County, Kisumu County and Migori County. Siaya County covers an area of 2,529.8 kilometres squared. According to the 2019 population and Housing census the population of the county is at 993,183 with a population density of 393 people per kilometre squared. The main economic activities include subsistence farming, livestock keeping, fishing, rice farming and small scale trading. Rice farming is done in Dominion farms along River Yala. Siaya County has six constituencies and thirty electoral wards. Alego Usonga, Gem and Bondo have six wards each while Rarieda has five, Ugenya has four wards and lastly Ugunja has three wards. Of importance to this article is the reign of the incumbent governor Cornel Amoth Rasanga.
Cornel Amoth Rasanga is the current governor of Siaya serving his last term of office. This is because he was re-elected in 2017 and the Constitution has it that the governors can serve a maximum of two terms. In short the sun of Cornel Rasanga is slowly setting but what has he done for the people of Siaya County? Was he a model leader? Is he a man whom many generations later will come to point to as a man who delivered while in office or will he be subject to criticism? That is the purpose of this article.
The Constitution did envisage two tier of government. That is National Government and County Government. These two levels of government have an obligation to serve the interests of the citizens. This is because power has been delegated to them by the people to act in best of their interests. The fourth schedule of the Constitution spells out the roles of the county government which include: Agriculture including; crop and animal husbandry; livestock sale yards; county abattoirs; plant and animal disease control; and fisheries. County health services, including, in particular county health facilities and pharmacies; ambulance services; promotion of primary health care; licensing and control of undertakings that sell food to the public; veterinary services (excluding regulation of the profession); cemeteries, funeral parlours and crematoria; and refuse removal, refuse dumps and solid waste disposal. Control of air pollution, noise pollution, other public nuisances and outdoor advertising. Cultural activities, public entertainment and public amenities, including betting, casinos and other forms of gambling; racing; liquor licensing cinemas; video shows and hiring; libraries; museums; sports and cultural activities and facilities; and county parks, beaches and recreation facilities. County transport, including county roads; street lighting; traffic and parking; public road transport; and ferries and harbours, excluding the regulation of international and national shipping and matters related thereto. Animal control and welfare, including licensing of dogs; and facilities for the accommodation, care and burial of animals.
Other functions of the County government include: Trade development and regulation, including markets; trade licences (excluding regulation of professions); fair trading practices; local tourism; and cooperative societies. County planning and development, including statistics; land survey and mapping; boundaries and fencing; housing; and electricity and gas reticulation and energy regulation. Pre-primary education, village polytechnics, home craft centres and childcare facilities. Implementation of specific national government policies on natural resources and environmental conservation, including soil and water conservation; and forestry. County public works and services, including storm water management systems in built-up areas; and water and sanitation services. Fire fighting services and disaster management. Control of drugs and pornography. Ensuring and coordinating the participation of communities and locations in governance at the local level and assisting communities and locations to develop the administrative capacity for the effective exercise of the functions and powers and participation in governance at the local level. Let me then assess how Cornel Amoth Rasanga was a disaster to the Siaya County residents.
Article 43 of the Constitution vouchsafes for economic and social rights. It states that every person has the right to the highest attainable standard of health, which includes the right to health care services, including reproductive healthcare. Chief Justice Willy Mutunga is on record stating that the bill of rights that is contained in Chapter Four of the Constitution makes the Kenyan Constitution be deemed progressive and transformative. The right to health is a human right. It is wide-ranging, and includes the following: access to healthcare services in general; access to vaccinations and immunisation; access to medicines and essential drugs; accessibility of healthcare and health services to persons with disabilities; access to maternal and child healthcare, including family planning; equality and non-discrimination in the provision of healthcare; protecting a healthy environment to ensure that people are free from serious environmental health threats; enforcement of occupational health and safety rules; financial, geographical and cultural accessibility of health services; and freedom from forced medical treatment/treatment without a person’s consent. The state has the obligation and duty to ensure the protection of the rights enshrined therein. The state of health is Siaya County is deplorable sorry to say that but that is the candid truth.
Siaya County health workers some time past staged a strike for a just cause. Article 41 of the Constitution gives the provision that every worker has the right to fair remuneration, to reasonable working conditions, to form and join in the activities and of a trade union and as well to go on strike. The workers decried delayed release of their salaries, which they say was becoming a habit for the county government. Mr Ng’anda who is one of the union officials in Siaya County castigated the County Government for failing to release over two months’ pay for the health workers. “The delay in payment of the salaries to the workers of the county is becoming habitual. We demand the Siaya Governor Cornel Rasanga to facilitate immediate release of our pay, failure to which we shall down our tools,” Mr Ng’anda said. The move that was taken by Siaya County Government was just a joke. The County government decided to issue disciplinary action over the striking health workers.
The health workers are striking and you end up threatening them. Surely, who does that? This shows how the county government has been mistreating health professionals and they can’t sit with them and hear out their cries and petitions. While the strike continued several residents from Siaya were affected in that there were no on-going operations in the hospital. This means those who were sick and perhaps in the hospital were left on their own and there was no one who could take care of them. For those in critical conditions perhaps they could die just because the County Government of Siaya leadership was unresponsive to the cries of the health workers. This is one way for denying citizens their rights that is encoded in the Supreme law of the land. This is not the only problem in Siaya County.
The other problems still on the heath sector, Siaya County Assembly have often expressed concern over the “deplorable” state of the county’s public hospitals. This is despite the fact that during the campaigns, Governor Cornel Rasanga promised to improve heals facilities and pay health workers. The Committee incharge of health in Siaya County Assembly noted that the Intensive Care Unit with a five bed capacity was equipped but not functioning because the hospital lacks specialised staff. The morgue at Siaya to be specific whose capacity is 24 bodies were found to be having 80 bodies. Moreover the mortuary stinks and has no cold room.
Over time the County has been pointed out as one among the counties that does not utilise the funds for development in the various financial years. There was one year in which the County Government failed to utilize over 1.2 billion shillings that was earmarked for development. As noted in the fourth schedule of the Constitution the county can utilize the funds towards making the lives of the Siaya County better. One might ask why they fail to make use of the funds. When the county government fails to use the money it goes back to the National Treasury this means the residents of Siaya overtime have not realized the value of devolution. Furthermore there was time when Siaya residents held a protest due to embezzlement of project fund that was donated to the County government. By the virtue that the County Governor is politically correct he can’t be arrested.
Siaya County government never fails, the World Bank in its report ranked Siaya County among the counties that were poorly run. This led Governor Rasanga to dismiss the report to be deeming to his leadership and the people of Siaya. Regardless, the report was done by experts who were looking at critical factors to assess the various counties. After all the poverty index of Siaya is still at its peak those were some of the indicators used by World Bank. Despite what I have mentioned the County Government has done well in some areas such as matters ECDE education and farming to some extent.
In a sermon, just like when we were in high school you could perform well in three subjects and fail in the other five this means you have failed in the exam generally. Amoth failed in his ten year term as a governor of Siaya County. From my assessment he scores a perfect D- as his score for his ten year tenure. This means it is high time for Siaya residents to summon their senses and look at the wider picture. Let them see what the county governments of Machakos, Makueni and Kisumu county have done respectively under the leadership of Honourable Doctor Alfred Mutua, Honourable Professor Kivutha Kibwana and Honourable Professor Anyang’ Nyong’o. Siaya County voters should vote for a leadership that will also make such great development projects and make sure that the citizens get value for their taxes. What has been happening in Siaya has just been a mockery with all due respect.
In a nutshell, John Maxwell noted that everything rises and falls on leadership. That has been clearly exhibited in Siaya County. My plea to Siaya residents is for them to elect a service driven leadership. A leadership that is action oriented and puts the needs of the residents at the first stance. A leadership that will entail; having a clear vision, the ability to communicate the vision to residents and County government workers, the ability to organize in an effective and efficient manner, inspiring subordinates towards the fulfilment of the county government goals, and balancing the conflict of interest of all subordinates, stakeholders and residents. Siaya County residents perhaps should try and look at how Kisumu County has changed in less than five years. That is what is they should emulate and elect a leader of substance. Honourable Cornel Amoth Rasanga will go into books of History as the first Governor of Siaya County unfortunately he has no legacy. Siaya residents don’t vote for Rasanga leadership again. I beseech you, for your own good.
Odhiambo Jerameel Kevins Owuor is a law student at University of Nairobi, Parklands Campus. He regularly comments on governance, politics, contemporary and legal issues in the country.
Jerameel Kevins Owuor Odhiambo