Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta on Friday launched a three-year post-COVID-19 socio-economic recovery strategy for county governments.
The 1.19 billion dollars (132 billion shillings) recovery plan prioritises agriculture, water and sanitisation, urban development and housing, transport, tourism and health.
Others are education, social protection and gender and youth as anchor sectors that will help counties to recover from the effects of COVID-19.
Kenyatta rallied governors to focus their collective efforts on implementing the strategy, saying Kenyans were counting on them to deliver the country from socio-economic disruption brought about by COVID-19.
The president said that the strategy was expected to drive real growth and economic rebound in the counties as the national government rolled out similar initiatives aimed at reviving the economy.
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Kenyatta said the close working relationship between counties and the national government had helped the country deal with COVID-19 better.
He said that one of the positive returns from the fight against COVID-19 in the country was strengthening of relations between the two levels of government.
“Together we have expanded our physical healthcare infrastructure, installed new and more medical equipment, recruited additional healthcare workers and upskilled our health services labour force,” he said.
The president said that other positive returns included deployment of a testing and contact-tracing system that had been a role model for other African nations.
He told governors to exercise financial prudence when implementing the strategy, and called on oversight institutions to apply heightened vigilance to ensure funds would be used appropriately.
“These limited resources must be utilised strictly for the purposes of elevating our nation.
“They must be used faithfully and with utmost transparency and accountability.
“If we waste this chance, we will certainly consign our motherland to many years of being mired in economic slowdown and social injustice,” Kenyatta said.
Wycliffe Oparanya, Chairman of the Council of Governors, said the financing of the 1.19 billion dollar strategy would largely be drawn from budgets of the County Government over the next three financial years, supplemented by resources from development partners.