- They said farming, small traders, health, education and infrastructure have collapsed in some parts of the country and require urgent support.
- Wetang'ula said Nairobi metropolitan area is not Kenya; all Kenyans should benefit from equitable budgetary allocations.
Image: JOHN NALIANYA
Western leaders want part of the Sh28 billion allocated to the Nairobi Metropolitan Services reallocated to other sectors, which play a significant role in the economy.
President Uhuru Kenyatta’s new budget has marginalised the population outside Nairobi, the 42 Western leaders said.
They said farming, small traders, health, education and infrastructure have collapsed in some parts of the country and require urgent support.
The politicians, flanked by leaders from other regions, said Kenya was larger than the Nairobi metropolitan region and other areas deserved equal attention.
“We take note, for example, that while the health sector in the budget has taken a formidable allocation of funds, this budget is focused on the Nairobi metropolitan area,” Bungoma Senator Moses Wetang'ula said on Friday at the ANC leader Musalia Mudavadi's residence in Nairobi.
“Nairobi metropolitan area is not Kenya. Let all Kenyans benefit from equitable budgetary allocations in all sectors."
They said the new budget failed to factor in the needs of urban youths, pastoralists, fishermen, the sugar sector and fishing industry, which directly supported many people.
Other sectors affected include tea, sugar, transport, education and research.
“We are left wondering whether this is a matter of the state giving up on the industries or is it erroneous human omission, or deliberate marginalisation of people in Rift Valley, Nyanza and Western,” they said.
“The sugar industry has been the mainstay of our economy in Western Kenya but not a single word of hope has been given to the sugar farmer and to all those whose lives and livelihoods have been defined around the sugar industry – from Awendo to Nzoia and from Mumias to Ramisi.”
They said the government had prioritised the marine industry as the next frontier of economic investment and growth.
“We, the leaders from Western Kenya, would like to fully understand what the blue economy should mean for the people of Western Kenya and the entire lake region,” they said.
They said marginalisation of entire populations in the country continued to be a matter of profound concern to them.
“We also remain concerned about the plight of farmers and pastoralists. They have had serious challenges with farm inputs and markets for their produce,” they said.
The leaders want more investments in farming so to address perennial food shortage in the country.
They want more resources directed to border communities to address a potential Covid-19 outbreak.
“It is a matter of a great irony that the communities living adjacent to the Kenya-Uganda border are among those who benefit least from the crossborder trade between the two countries,” they said.
They said marginalisation had underdeveloped the economy in the lake basin, the North Rift and the Mt Elgon regions.
“A deliberate blueprint to revamp the regional economy, all the way from the Central Rift Valley, the North and South Rift, the lake basin and Western Kenya, is of paramount urgency,” they said.
They asked the state to address overcrowding of trucks at the Kenyan borders, which posed a Covid-19 outbreak threat to the country.
Edited by Henry Makori