Hon Duncan Mathenge: This is Why CDF is Highly Important

By Martin Masinde

Nyeri Town member of parliament The Honorable Duncan Mathenge has highlighted the importance of the national government Constituency Development Fund NG-CDF.

In a news Interview with The Times digital hon Mathenge singled out education as one of the key pillars being enabled by this very important fund.

“Education is undoubtedly the key to life and this cannot be overemphasized by the NG-CDF. In Nyeri Town Constituency I have extra county and county schools all of which are dependent on bursaries. We even have cases of students who finished the Form Four three or four years ago and now they are seeking for bursary to enable them offset the fee arrears so that they can be allowed to clear. Look at the school infrastructure for example. This fund, the NG-CDF has been able to accord our schools a decent infrastructure facelift by making sure public Primary schools have at least a concrete floor and also for renovation.

For secondary schools, the fund has come in handy in terms of enabling them to construct science laboratories now that sciences are a mandatory subject. That notwithstanding, in my Nyeri Town Constituency, I still have three day secondary schools that still don’t have a Science Laboratory.

The Government has been keen and emphatic on the need for 100% Transition to secondary school, but the question is, how many classes or ablution blocks has the Government constructed to facilitate that? All the work has been done courtesy of NG-CDF.

Let’s take a case in point of Junior Secondary which is going to be domiciled in the primary schools. The government doesn’t know the state of physical infrastructure in our schools and you might be shocked that the ministry of education also has no clue as to the cost of erecting a science lab.

Let’s check the next pillar of social protection.

“When last did the Government put up an assistant Chief’s camp. The truth of the matter is that no single one has been put up including by the ministry of interior. Yet the government keeps on allocating more sublocations without considering where the infrastructure will be funded from. Only the office of the Assistant County commissioner is done by the government the rest is all funded by NG-CDF.

Nearly two Thirds of Highmast lights aren’t functional since NG-CDF does not cater for recurrent expenditure. These Highmast lights popularly known as Mulika Mwizi have been key in reduction of crime in our society.

In order to empower people digitally I’m exploring on ways to put up community WiFi hotspots in select parts of my constituency. This will enable my people to exploit the digital highway.

Hon. Mathenge highly recommends that NG-CDF should be expanded to enable it cater for a broader scope of social protection more so under the pillar of food security. He says:

“In my Constituency (Nyeri Town) I’ve some stalled community irrigation schemes which, if they could be funded, they could be the answer we have been longing for in terms of food security. We don’t need Galana Kulalu. We need to ensure these projects are funded to ensure that our people are self – sustaining.

Lastly but not the least the other most important pillar that NG-CDF has enabled under the pillar of social protection is rehabilitation of drug addicts. The rehabilitation process in Kenya is way very expensive bearing in mind that the government only has one functional public rehab that is domiciled at the Mathari Psychiatric hospital. In all my more than twelve public participation fora my people are suggesting that NG-CDF should cater for rehabilitation of youths who are affected by drugs. They demand that I should apply the NG-CDF to provide Psychosocial support to drug addicts.

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