The State Department of Devolution through the Kenya Devolution Support Program (KDSP II) has commenced the Independent Verification of Achievement of Minimum Access Conditions for Financial Year 2025/2026 which will gauge whether County Government of Siaya qualifies to earn the Level 1 and level 2 funding from the World Bank funded grant.
During the opening of the meeting between the County Program Implementation Unit (CPIU) and the Independent Verification of Achievement (IVA) team, County Secretary Mr. Joseph Ogutu, representing Governor James Orengo, assured the team of the county’s full cooperation through the CPIU. He expressed confidence in the county’s thorough preparation and comprehensive documentation of operations.
The County Secretary emphasized that the administration is alive to the fact that KDSP II is a performance for results program and the executive is keen in doing whatever it takes no matter the challenges to be part of the program. He further reaffirmed the Nyalore’s administration towards attaining all the Disbursement Linked Indicators in order to attract the funding by establishing and operationalizing required structures, committing some resources as co- funding for level 1 and level 2 grants, and many other requirements as outlined in the Pre-program Operation Manual. Mr. Ogutu invited the CPIU members to learn from the assessment on the areas of improvement, while highlighting the delay in release of funds from the National Treasury as a major hurdle in the program implementation.
The County Executive Committee Member for Governance, Administration and ICT, where the Program is anchored, CS Agunda Ochanda re-affirmed the commitment of the County’s participation to this program given the fact that it supports critical areas of governance matters and is geared towards cleaning up the devolved system. He committed to ensure the IVA team have a seamless exercise by availing all the resources needed for the achievement of the objective of the exercise, exuding confidence that Siaya will score good results in the assessment.
The Chief Officer for Governance, Administration and ICT Hon. Walter Okelo who is also the Accounting Officer for the program, assured the team of support, collaboration and cooperation.
The IVA team which was led by Dr. Benjamin Karume, Judy Murugi and Winnie Njenga both serving as IVA assistants, outlined the details of the exercise noting that this is the second verification exercise for the Year 2 of the program which focusses on operations of structures, documentation and content of the documents. At the end of the exercise, a review of what the county has done would be documented, digitalize the document and post it where it will be accessed by the World Bank. Year 1 focused on the creation of structures.
The aim of the exercise is to verify whether the County has met the minimum access conditions so that it doesn’t miss the level 2 investment Grant.
County Government of Siaya has earmarked the construction of Mother Baby Complex, a component of the proposed Siaya County Referral Hospital (level 5), to be funded by level II investment grant.