By Christopher Omondi
Public participation in my community of Kosawo has been effective due to many reasons and as a result, making service delivery and accountability in my area one of the main pressing issues. It is actually surprising to most of the people from my community that government-arranged public participations actually do take place within Kondele ward. This year alone, Kisumu county has held several public participation forums to engage residents in various governance and development matters, including one held in Kondele ward on March 25th 2025, at Kosawo hall on the proposed county budget estimates for the financial year 2025/2026.
However, there is still no success in the forums that have been taking place in Kondele due to political affiliations, as heckling has been witnessed in these areas and in some cases even bribery and physical tensions, causing injuries to the locals who attend the forums. “Public participations in Kondele ward cannot take place because issues raised are mostly taken personally due to political rivalry, while other issues are overlooked due to political affiliations’’, said Nelsen Oturo, These forums are also not announced early and well to the people, thus people don’t get to them or are late.’’ He added.
In most cases there have been forums where certain societies felt discriminated in the invitation and communication, especially the youth as there is no civic education on public participations, as there is laxity from public institutions to educate members on the purposes of these barazas. ‘’We have been let down by the institutions such as the office of public participatio,n which was established under the Kisumu County Public Participation Act, 2015. There is also the village councils established under the Kisumu County Village Council Act, 2019. While also the county assembly, who conduct public participations working with civil society organizations’’, said Fred Oduor. “most young people are not represented and are used mainly in disrupting these forums’’, he added.
Documents that are used to communicate the dates of the forums or whatever was discussed in the barazas to the public mostly on the county portal is usually too long and with many pages making it difficult for the public to consume all the information at once and thus making it difficult to engage effectively in the forums or any other governance related activities and so this affects service delivery in my community as leaders are not accountable.
