Governors want child services function devolved

Governors are demanding the devolution of child services to deal with rising numbers of street families.

Council of Governors chairman Isaac Ruto said county governments have no mandate to budget for programmes to rehabilitate street children which leaves them facing the dilemma of how to rid streets of the homeless.
He told the Sunday Nation that the money allocated to counties is barely enough to cover basic expenditures, leave alone the evacuation of street families who are blamed for rising crime in urban areas.

“Street families are a serious challenge that will be best handled at the lower levels of the devolved system. There are many people in our jurisdictions who need rehabilitation,” Mr Ruto said in a telephone interview.

Chamber of commerce leaders in Nairobi, Kisumu and Nakuru—some of the urban areas grappling with the issue—said the street families menace is a threat to most businesses, especially the hospitality industry.

In Nairobi, the areas most plagued by the children are Kirinyaga Road and the Globe Cinema roundabout, according to Mr Kiprono Kittony, chairman of the Kenya National Chamber of Commerce.
Mr Kittony said the areas teem with street families who make life a nightmare for road users, an opinion shared by Nairobi resident Charles Midenga.

“Between 2002 and 2010,” Mr Midenga said, “broad daylight thefts were almost unheard of. The number of street children has risen, and insecurity is back. Snatching of mobile phones is rampant.”
In Nakuru, shoppers dread parking outside supermarkets in fear of losing their car parts.

“Going to public markets by car is worse. If you put your shopping in a vehicle to return for more, it is highly likely when you return, you will find the car broken into and the shopping gone,” said Mr Njuguna Kamau, the chair of the Nakuru County Chamber of Commerce.

There are 1,947 street children in Nakuru, Naivasha and Molo towns in the county according to the area child services office.
The situation isn’t any better in Mombasa which has about 10,000 street children according to county children’s services director Elizabeth Mbuka.
Kisumu town faces an equal challenge with an estimated 1,000 homeless children.

Governors say they could help arrest the situation if counties were given the authority and the resources to rehabilitate these street children.
The Fourth Schedule of the Constitution says some of the roles of counties are “pre-primary education, village polytechnics, homecraft centres and childcare facilities.”

Sunday Nation has learnt that the childcare facilities mentioned do not include prorammes to rehabilitate street children as this function falls under the ministry of Devolution and Planning. Because of this Mr Ruto said, some counties have been forced to go out of their way to accommodate the care of street families.

TURN A BLIND EYE

“Sometimes counties carry out roles that are not part of their mandates because you cannot turn a blind eye to them,” said Mr Ruto.

Nairobi, for instance, is building a Sh200 million street children rehabilitation centre in Ruai after the county assembly approved the plan in May last year. Deputy Governor Jonathan Mueke said at a past function that the centre would help curb crime. Questions are also arising over the status of a rehabilitation programme started by former Deputy President Moody Awori.

Former Local Government minister Musalia Mudavadi asked why Street Families Rehabilitation Trust Fund is now left to run without funding and without new trustees appointed since December last year.

“We have been informed by the ministry of Devolution that indeed there have been no new appointments of trustees though the fund still exists with minimal activities and trustees working on pro-bono basis. That means the fund was left to run dormant for lack of trustees and budget even as streets families increase,” Mr Mudavadi said in an e-mail.

The fund was established in 2003 as a brainchild of Mr Awori. It was to be headed by trustees appointed every three years and was tasked with co-ordinating the rehabilitation activities for street families. The last appointment was done by Mr Mudavadi in December 11, 2011. Business mogul Manu Chandaria was the chairman.

The coming of the devolved system is said to have shifted focus from the trust fund, which was formerly under the Local Government ministry.
“With the advent of devolution, the fund should have continued and even expand its activities and mandate,” Mr Mudavadi said.

He added: “The (Devolution) ministry might want to explain how and by whom the role of the fund is being played; and indeed whether the ministry of Devolution is the proper home for the fund.”
Though the ministry had not responded to our enquiry by the time of going to press, it said in its November 2014 newsletter that the rehabilitation fund is still in existence.

The newsletter said the fund would facilitate the training of 3,500 reformed street children countrywide during the financial year ending this July.

“Since its inception, 26,000  street children have benefitted from the fund  countrywide with 800 of them doing various vocational trainings  at  the  National  Youth Service. Currently, another 2,000 former street youths are undertaking courses in various institutions countrywide,” said the November 10-16, 2014 newsletter from Ms Anne Waiguru’s ministry.

“Among other activities lined up to be accomplished this financial year include conducting census to ascertain the exact number of street families in the country and mobilising more resources to support the disadvantaged street families.”

The business community now wants the national government to create a policy that will apply uniformly to all counties.

Mr Kittony, the national chamber of commerce chairman, said a good policy will be better than the occasional swoops conducted by police and county governments.

“It would be good to have an organised plan rather than the knee-jerk reactions we usually see from the county governments of cleaning up the streets,” he said.