Many counties seem to be very late with formulating and publishing the new plans for the new election period running from 2018 to 2022, according to a web search conducted by RoGGKenya.org. As of today, Aug 21, 2018, RoGGKenya.org has found only 24 County Integrated Development Plans (CIDPs) on the web pages of the county governments and county assemblies.
For the convenience of our fellow journalists, the almost complete first round of CIDPs for the period 2013-2017 and those we found for 2018 to 2022 are available on our download page.
Excuses for the Delays
Many counties had attributed the delay to the prolonged presidential election period (slightly more than two months), but it remains unclear how this may have directly affected the county administrators, governments and assemblies.
The substantial delay that can be observed in many counties is odd, because the financial year 2018 / 19 has begun on July 1st, and its budget should already have been based on the five year plan of 2018 to 2022.
The then Ministry of Devolution and Planning had required the counties to table the new CIDPS in the County Assemblies no later than December 31, 2017, almost eight months ago. The Ministry had laid this down in new guidelines for preparation of CIDP in September 2017. See
CIDP-GUIDELINES-REVISED-SEPTEMBER-2017
It is Section 104 of the County Government Act 2012 that requires county governments to develop the CIDP along with sectoral plans and spatial plans.
Failures in Public Participation?
However, in a bid to comply with the County Government Act 2012, on CIDP preparation, eight months later after the deadline on 31 December, the process for the 2018-2022 CIDP is being rushed and this is where the laws and rules are being ignored. Journalists can help track the process and flag off areas that failed to follow the laid down procedures.
For instance on 14 July, 2018, Homa Bay County Assembly rejected the tabling of the CIDP on ground that there were no meaningful public participation. Read The Standard: County may be forced to revisit CIDP. This means the process could be taken back for public input. What would be the cost implications? Why was the process rushed?
Some counties have planned early enough
Journalists can question the process to ensure counties have done a stakeholder mapping to determine which entities in the county will take part in the development of the plan. In determining the above, Not every county is acting as speedily as Kilifi which planned early to roll out the public participation process in September 2017 as mentioned here by the Kenyan Association of Manufacturers. The CIDP we uploaded to our page carries the date of February 2018.
The Nairobi County CIDP on the other hand dedicates only one page to assessing the 2013-2017 plan. Is this appropriate?
Other possible Media Stories
The post in the link above for Kilifi for example shares that there were plans to engage media, academia, development partners, and disadvantaged groups in the process. Is this being done? Where is the evidence for public participation?
A good example of public participation is the county of Makueni which has stated they engaged 120,000 people in the development of the 2018-2022 CIDP. Read story here on CitizenTV . Similar statistics can be investigated for the other counties.
Our Story Suggestions: “Is the Five-Year-Plan on Track”?
