Persons with disabilities and other residents of Trans Nzoia County have welcomed the national government’s decision to involve the public in the budget-making process.
The residents spoke at a stakeholder forum on the FY 2024/2025 – 2026/2027 medium-term budget-making process held at Kitale National Polytechnic on Wednesday.
They said the forum provided an opportunity to highlight salient issues that they considered significant in spurring economic growth and development in the county, which is known 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 with disabilities.
Wafula appealed to the national treasury to help reduce the cost of production for 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.
Wafula also urged the government to further reduce the price of fertilizer to enable more farmers to increase the acreage of land under the maize crop.
Presenting views to the forum, it was evident that the 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 that 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 Trans Nzoia 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 that their collated views will 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.