Jobs on the cards as County plans to form village councils

Kisumu County Governor Anyang' Nyong'o during a presser on July 2, 2018. [Denish Ochieng/Standard]

The county executive has forwarded a Bill to the assembly seeking to establish village councils.

The Bill seeks, among others, to employ professionals to help run the villages and also help propagate policies as well as monitor funded projects at the grassroots.

''It has been brought to the house and members will give it top priority when they come back from a four-week recess,'' said Deputy Speaker Roy Samo.

Each village unit under the devolved system of governance is supposed to establish a council.

''Each council, to be chaired by a village administrator, will oversee projects in villages,'' said Mr Samo.

Assuming office

Soon after taking office, Governor Anyang' Nyong'o established a team to look into the creation of village councils.

The team, chaired by Elijah Adul, made several recommendations, including engaging village elders and proposing allowances for them.

According to a member of the team, Peter Abiero, each village council will consist of not less than three and not more than five elders.

The Kisumu County authorities have found that there are about 300 villages in each of the seven constituencies.

The team has suggested that the governor be allowed to appoint at least three or five elders in each village.

This means there will be about 1,500 village council elders if he picks a minimum of three.

Each of the villages will have one administrator who would with the council to monitor projects in their areas.

The village administrator will report to the ward administrator and will be responsible for coordinating, managing and supervising the general functions of the village unit.