The Commission on Administrative Justice has rolled out programs towards building the capacities of county government officers in complaint handling and ensuring proactive disclosure of information for effective implementation of the World Bank-funded Financing Locally Led Climate Action Program (FLLoCA).
Speaking in Hola town during a meeting between MCAs of Tana River County Assembly and a team from the Commission, Vice-Chairperson of the commission Washington Sati, urged all 47 county Governments to move fast to domesticate model County Complaints Handling Policy and ‘Model Law on Access to Information for County Governments’ for the benefit of entrenching transparency and accountability in the counties.
Tana River County Assembly Speaker Osman Galole thanked the Ombudsman team for the visit and appealed to the Commission to open an office in Tana River County to bring its services closer to the people.
The policy provides key guidance on complaint-handling processes and is focused on supporting and ensuring mainstreaming of complaints handling in the provision of services by counties to promote responsiveness and accountability. Specific focus has been paid to complaint channels at the County and Ward levels for use during the FLLoCA project implementation phase.
“The Commission will offer continued capacity building and technical support to counties to domesticate and implement these policies in all the 47 counties,” Commissioner Sati said.
The complaints-handling policy for counties developed by the Commission with support from the National Treasury and the World Bank seeks to remedy the piecemeal approach to complaint handling in the counties; and provide a framework for standardization of complaint-handling processes for county Governments.
During the visit, the Commission trained County staff charged with the responsibility of handling grievances and facilitating access to information. Those officers trained included members of the Climate Change Units at the County and Ward levels, who will from time to time handle complaints from the members of the public arising out of the implementation of the FLLoCA program
The Commission also carried out Public education, and outreach/Legal aid activities at the main market in Hola Town targeting members of the public. This was geared towards empowering citizens to hold Counties accountable.
FLLoCA is a program of the Government of Kenya funded by the World Bank whose objective is to deliver locally-led climate resilience actions and strengthen County and National Governments’ capacities to manage climate risks.
The program focuses on building county-level capacity for planning, budgeting, reporting, and implementation of local climate actions in partnership with communities, and strengthening national-level capacity for coordination, monitoring, and reporting. The Commission ON Administrative Justice is a key partner in the program based on its integral role in promoting administrative justice and access to information in the public sector.
The FLLoCA program envisions inclusivity and public participation as key tenets to the success of locally-led climate action. The model law acts as a guide on the minimum standards for the county’s access to information laws.
