During the four-hour meeting with the governors on Monday, President Uhuru Kenyatta discussed various issues some of which were never told to the public.
The leaders of the two levels of government discussed various measures and reached 23 recommendations to help curb the spread of coronavirus, some of which did not feature in the President’s address to the public.
For instance, President Uhuru Kenyatta instructed the National Treasury to immediately disburse Sh57.3 billion to the devolved unit to enhance their war chest against coronavirus.
The President further gave the Treasury two weeks to release to the county government the outstanding remittance of conditional grants that amounted to Sh4.6 billion.
He also instructed the Exchequer to release the counties’ equitable share of the revenue for June, under the financial year 2019/2020, and the allocation for July.
The order issued to the Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yattani to expedite the release of the funds comes after the devolved units said that the delay was negatively affecting their preparedness for the Covid-19 surge.
During the meeting, the President also ordered the governors to procure protective equipment (PPEs) from government-approved suppliers.
The head of state said the Ministry of Health would be tasked with the expeditious conclusion of the construction of health facilities under the equitable fund program and surrender them to the county government on a priority basis.
On issues to do with education, President Uhuru Kenyatta issued various directives including deferring the reopening of high learning institutions to January 2021. He instructed the Ministry of Education to facilitate this and ensure online learning and graduations proceed.
President Uhuru said that the Ministry of Education will concentrate on a rigorous and transformative program to handle all the infrastructural gaps in all basic learning institutions across the country.
“The Ministry of Education shall expedite the roll-out of the eight-point stimulus program which targets to improve school infrastructure by various means, including the acquisition of at least 250,000 locally fabricated desks,” he said.
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At the same time, the ministry will come up with procedures for community learning, which shall guide learning through a teacher-volunteer program for children living in the same neighborhood or community.
The president all also told the Inter-Faith Council that there shall be a limited number of people attending religious gatherings.
“All religious ceremonies and festivals will continue to be conducted with limited person-to-person contact and at all times with strict fidelity to the guidelines issued by the Interfaith Council with the approval of Ministry of Health,” he said.
