The newly created Chuka Town Municipality will now benefit from Kenya Urban Support Programme (KUSP) billions grant given to municipalities for infrastructure and industrial developments.
Speaking after a meeting between the Council of Governors (CoG) Lands, Housing and Urban Development Committee, World Bank and KUSP steering committee at the CoG offices in Nairobi on Thursday, Tharaka Nithi Governor Muthomi Njuki said Chuka Town Municipality and 18 others will be the new beneficiaries bringing to 77, the total number of municipalities across the country.
He said Kathwana Municipality which hosts the county headquarters benefited from phase one of the programme and will also get the grant in phase two after the county ‘showed good absorption of the monies in line with the requirements’.
“This KUSP programme, through the support of the National Government and the World Bank is becoming a reality with the newly created Chuka Town Municipality being a beneficiary in the second phase, alongside 18 other new municipalities in different counties,” said Njuki in his official social media platforms.
Two weeks
This comes barely two weeks after Tharaka Nithi County Assembly passed a motion allowing the creation of Chuka Town Municipality which comprises Chuka town, Ndagani, Karongoni, Kiangondu among other areas surrounding the town.
In a public participation meeting held in Chuka town just a day before the motion was tabled in the chambers in Kathwana, residents of Chuka town and its environs agreed to the establishment of the new development unit.
The process of creating a new municipality is not complete with the passing of the motion in the county assembly but until it is gazetted after other requirements are met including giving the people time to challenge the proposed unit if not contented.
Chuka town was a municipality before the 2010 Constitution which nullified it after failing to meet the requirements which include having at least 50,000 population.
Though Kathwana does not meet the 50,000 population requirement, the 2010 Constitution states that all county headquarters are automatically municipalities.
Governor Njuki said to curb rural-urban migration ‘which has been one of the greatest contributors to inequality in the growth of our country, a problem that devolution attempts to resolve urban centers in the counties must be developed to almost the level of cities’.
In phase one, Kathwana received millions which were used in tarmacking of the town streets and construction of the open-air market among other infrastructural development
