The Centre for Multiparty Democracy (CMD) Kenya in collaboration with the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) has convened a round table dialogue session in Wote, Makueni County in efforts to strengthen accountable, democratic governance and active citizenry in the country.
The CMD is in a two year project that will majorly focus on provision of platforms for dialogue between county leaders and citizens for citizen led local democracy in the Counties.
This comes at a time when most counties have passed the constitutional Amendment Bill, 2020, in a process that involves public participation which the CMD CEO saying they have representatives to gauge the inclusivity of the process.
Speaking during an event at a Hotel in Wote Town, Franklin Mkwanja the CMD Executive Director said the dialogue will help streamline public participation and civic engagement to address the confusion in the oversight role in the county governments.
“There seems to be a serious confusion. The office of the senator is involved in oversight, Members of County Assembly are involved in oversight and public participation as well, the County Executive, through its structures are also involved in public participation and this has brought about a lot of confusion which we need to help streamline responding to their question of who is the final authority,” said Franklin Mkwanja.
The dialogue brings together the county executive, political parties, the civil society and the county assembly structures to assess the necessity for constitutional amendments in the 2010 constitution on public participation procedures.
“We are bringing together the County Executive Structures, the structures from the branch of Political Parties, the Civil Society and the County Assemblies to ensure the conversation is really wide ranging and enriching to ensure that if there are any amendments to do in terms of the way our constitution is structured around public participation or whether we need to tinker with the Public Finance Management Act or whether we need to revisit the County government Act or any other legislation to streamline public participation then that is done to ensure that this confusion and duplication is avoided,” said the CMD CEO.
The Executive director says that while the country may not have fully achieved democracy, it is walking in the right direction and that the process would be speeded by civic engagement.
“We may be walking slowly towards our destination but we are facing the right direction with multiparty democracy,” said Franklin Mkwanja.