Homa Bay Town MP Peter Kaluma on Sunday revealed that a new amendment to the National Government Constituency Development Fund (NG-CDF) completely bars lawmakers from implementing the fund.
In a series of tweets, the lawmaker indicated that MPs are no longer members of NG-CDF Committees, Patrons, or members of Constituency Oversight Committees (COC).
He further noted that COC was deleted from the Act and no longer exists.
"NG-CDF is currently a fund of and in the Executive operated through the NG-CDF Board in Nairobi with the participation of the people at the grassroots," he stated.
"The CDF Project Management Committee (PMC) which implements CDF projects in schools is the Board of Management of each school."
"The Ministry of Education receives billions for school infrastructure each year but no single infrastructure has been built in our schools in Homa Bay since independence. The Cabinet Secretaries (CSs) and Principal Secretaries (PSs) are known to divert the monies to their regions, excluding others and stealing the funds," he added.
He further took an issue with individuals fighting the NG-CDF arguing that the funds come from the allocation of the National government after the Division of Revenue between National and County Governments.
"Those fighting NG-CDF should first: Get the current government to make education free. Both Kenya Kwanza and Azimio promised free education during campaigns, and create accountable and equitable systems through which all our schools will be built across Kenya, like by NG-CDF," he added.
"The argument that the National Government can only discharge its functions at the grassroots by sending funds to counties is false at law."
NG-CDF has been a thorny issue over the years in Parliament which threatened to paralyse house discussions amid the state's delay in disbursing the funds.
In December last year, lawmakers walked out of Parliament accusing the government of failing to release the money. At the time, they chanted, 'No CDF, No Parliament."
In February 2023, the MPs also threatened to frustrate the passage of the supplementary bill due to CDF delays. At the time, only Ksh10 billion of the Ksh44 billion allocation had been released.
