Ruku Unpacks Plans for Mbeere North MP
This is one on one interview with newly MP for Mbeere North Hon. Geoffrey Kariuki Kiringa Ruku.
Ruku won the Mbeere North seat on a Democratic Party ticket. DP is affiliated to Kenya Kwanza Alliance.
First, I say a big and hearty thank you to the constituents of Mbeere North for giving me the opportunity to serve them for the next 5 years.
Mbeere North is arid and one of the least developed constituencies. It therefore requires attention to bring it at par with other constituencies. Accordingly, my priority agenda will be water, transport, energy, agriculture, education and economic empowerment.
- Water. I will lobby for construction of bulk water reservoir at Kamūmū gorge. The reservoir can hold 36 million litres of water. This will be enough for domestic and agricultural use.
- Transport. I will lobby KeRRA to upgrade Gīkurarī-Kīriī-Ishiara-Ngiirī to bitumen standard.
I will also lobby KeNHa to upgrade the inter-county … – Mwingī Road to bitumen standard to open transport between Mbeere North and lower eastern and coast.
- Energy. Mbeere North requires electric energy supply in order to industrialise and to raise education standards. To achieve this, I have initiated discussions with REREC to establish a power centre in Mbeere North and also to connect every homestead.
- Agriculture. To start with, I am working on Crop (Amendment) Bill to include Mūgūka as a crop distinct from miraa. This will facilitate funding of farmers and organisation of the trade. I will also draft and table a bill on protection of mūgūka as Mbeere indigenous crop.
- Education. I will automate application and approval of bursaries to reduce administrative bottlenecks, device a better system of identifying the really needy students in high schools and tertiary institutions.
However, for students in tertiary institutions, HELB is available. I will lobby HELB to introduce affirmative action in favour of Mbeere North. This means that HELB Act and operations need to be revisited through legislation. I will work on that.
- Economic empowerment. This targets the youth, women, elderly and PWDs of Mbeere North. To achieve this, I will draft and table a Public Procurement and Asset Disposal (Amendment) Bill to among others reduce the cost of tendering and to streamline the reservation, preference and unbundling of projects within Mbeere North. Main contractors should be restricted to labour only tenders while the locals supply materials and un/skilled labour.
As you can see, there’s a lot of work for me to.
I look forward to the determination of the petitions in the Supreme Court so that the president-elect can be sworn and for me to start my work in earnest.
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