The Kajiado County Assembly is set to get modern debating chambers which are being built at a cost of Sh500 million.
County Assembly Speaker Johnson Osoi says the new chambers will be completed in the life of the next parliament, whose members will be sworn in after the August 8 elections.
Mr Osoi said this on Thursday when he joined the Senate Speaker Ekwee Ethuro in a ground-breaking ceremony for the new chambers.
He noted that for the four years they have been in operation, the Kajiado County Assembly inherited debating chambers from the defunct Olkejuado County Council, which he said had been built in 1948.
"We found dilapidated infrastructure here. We barely had sitting space leave alone a debating chamber to run the business of the legislature," said Mr Osoi.
Speaker Ethuro thanked the Kajiado County Government and the county assembly for undertaking the building of the new chambers.
BE PATIENT
Mr Ethuro, at the same time, asked Kenyans to be patient with county governments as they go about laying structures required of them in the Constitution, saying that the three years given by the Transitional Authority were quite short.
He said that county governments have had to cope with limited resources allocated by the national government.
"Kenyans are too harsh on the county governments," said Mr Ethuro.
"We must appreciate that the process is slow and county governments have to cater for competing demands on the finite resources allocated [by] the national government."
However, Mr Ethuro said that the financial situation is about to change since President Uhuru Kenyatta on Thursday signed the County Allocations Bill thus "money is going to be available this financial year".
