West Pokot County

Finance and Economic Planning

Vision

To be a centre of excellence in financial and economic planning , service delivery transformation and devolution for a high quality of life to all county citizens.

Mission

To provide overall leadership and policy direction in resource mobilization, management and accountability for quality public service delivery.

The Department’s core mandate include integrated development planning, mobilization of revenue, effective and efficient management of public resources, tracking implementation of programmes and creating conducive environment for the private sector investment.

Roads, Public Works and Transport‌

Road, Rail Network, Ports and Airports, Airstrips and Jetts
The road network in the County is predominantly earth and gravel surface which makes up 87 percent of the road network. The gravel surface roads cover a distance of 349 km while the earth surface roads cover 697 km. The total length of bitumen surface (tarmac) road is only 151 km. This means that for every 60.7 km2, there is 1 Km of a tarmac roadand for every 1 Km of the same tarmac road, we have 4,180 persons. The general status of the road network in the county is poor. The tarmacked road is poorly maintained while the earth and graveled
roads becomes impassable during the rainy seasons. A rugged and hilly terrain within the county poses another challenge in road connectivity. The county has no rail network, ports and airports. The airstrips are completely inactive.

Health and Sanitation

Diseases Prevalence and Morbidity

The most common diseases in the county include malaria, respiratory tract infections, diarrhoea and stomach ache. Malaria prevalence remains high at 42 percent. The use of treated nets has helped to significantly reduce infection and transmission of Malaria and more effort is needed to ensure its continued use. There is also need for closer monitoring of HIV/AIDS infection due to its socioeconomic impact on households and communities. Females are more vulnerable to sickness than males in the county.

Health Service Access

The county has health facilities managed by the County Government of West Pokot ranging from Level 2 to 5. The county has numerous gaps in most of the health system blocks. Most notably in Human Resources for Health in terms of levels of care under Level One (community health services) there are 252 community units spread across the sub counties.
‌Under Level Two (dispensaries and health centres) there are 105 health facilities, 10 being Health Centres. The county also has five county hospitals under Level Four. Currently there are no tier five facilities but plans are underway to upgrade the county referral hospital to Level five. Furthermore, the County has 1 Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) health centre facility and 12 Private facilities of which, one is a nursing home. ‌The ideal situation would be for each sub-County to have a level 4 facility and several level 3 and 2 facilities. West Pokot County is served by 4 hospitals, 8 health centres and 142 dispensaries. Kapenguria County hospital and Ortum Mission Hospital are the two major health facilities in the County.

Nutritional Status 

The percentage of children at risk of malnutrition stands at 6.6 percent. Chronic malnutrition rate stands at 35% at the county. Currently, there are efforts by development partners to improve on child nutrition. Development partners work with the department of health, sanitation and emergencies to address nutrition.

Immunization 

Immunization coverage is still low in the county. With other parts of the country gearing to the achievement of 100 percent immunization coverage, the immunization coverage (fully immunized child) in the county stands at 58.1 percent. This is attributed to low staffing of health facilities, few and inaccessible health facilities and nomadic life style. Most affected areas are: Kasei, Konyao, Sook, Seker and Chepkokogh.

Family Planning Services 

The contraceptive acceptance in the county is low, modern contraceptive prevalence rate currently stands at 23%. This is attributed to the culture of valuing many children as source of wealth and protection in the community, ignorance and high illiteracy. Due to awareness creation and family planning campaign, this acceptance is expected to rise. In order to increase the contraceptive acceptance levels, there is need for awareness creation and family planning campaign and reduction in the cost of family planning commodities.

Education and Technical Training

Pre-School Education
There are 1,032 pre-primary schools centres in the county with 838 ECD teachers. ECDE enrolment currently stands at 77,679 giving teacher pupil ratio of 1:92. This enrolment represents approximately 51 percent of the total eligible number of ECD school age children under this age bracket. Low enrolment is contributed by nomadic lifestyle, long distances to schools and lack of enough feeding program. The priority areas under early childhood development include construction of additional classrooms, recruitment of more ECD teachers, provision of school feeding programme and installation of water tanks to ECDE schools.

Primary Education

There are 554 primary schools with total enrolment of 186,708 pupils in the county. There are 3005 teachers giving teacher pupil ratio of 1:52. The county has a gross primary school enrolment of 89 percent and a transition rate of 66 percent to secondary schools. Issues affecting primary school going school children in the county include lack of sanitary pads, inadequate teaching staff, early marriages, female genital mutilation, child labour, sexual abuse, inadequate learning and reading materials, inadequate access to water and healthcare, insecurity, high household poverty levels, inadequate parental care and lack of electricity
connections in some schools.

Secondary Education

There are 120 secondary schools with total enrolment of 156,272 students in the county. There are a total of 987 teachers giving Teacher pupil ratio of 1:52. The county has a gross secondary school enrolment of 75 percent. Staffing and school infrastructure needs to be proved to enhance the learning environment and ensure quality education.

Youth Polytechnics

There are six youth polytechnics in the County namely; Kapenguria, Chepareria, Ortum, Sigor, Sina and Kodich. Enrolment in county polytechnics is very low. Huge gender disparities also exist in enrolment in favor of males. As at December 2017, the total enrolment in the county stood at 588, posting a low average of 98 trainees per institution. Commitment by the new county government administration to offer bursaries for vocational trainees raised the enrolment by more than double in the first term of 2018. In order for the county to register milestones in this sector, the focus should deliberate and directed towards four distinctive strategic areas : quality and relevance, Equity and access, Governance and Management, and financing. This tremendous increase in enrolment calls for county government’s interventions in the areas of: VTcs’ staff recruitment and employment, infrastructure development, provision of tools and equipment, support in governance and management, and enhanced community sensitization. The sensitization component will be vital since the current enrolment caters for only about 30% of youth leaving the mainstream jmeducation system between primary and secondary levels (over 3,500 annually).

Tertiary Education
There are eleven tertiary institutions in the county of which five are polytechnics, extra mural centre of Nairobi University, Kisii University, Elgon View Training Institute, Kitale technical branch, Kenya Institute of Professional Studies, Teachers training colleges (Chesta TTC and Murpus TTC), ECDE Teachers College, Kapenguria and Ortum Nursing Schools. These tertiary institutions remain insufficient and there is need to put up more institutions in the county.

Adult and Continuing Education
West Pokot county has low literacy level of 30% compared to the national literacy level of 62%. These people are limited in their operations due to illiteracy .Adult education literacy should be a part of many approaches to reducing poverty as multiple initiatives needed to lift people out of poverty.

Technical Vocational Education and Training
The Community sensitization on the need to embrace vocational skills training as a mainstream career line has resulted to increase in enrollment from 550 to the current 630 in the public Vocational training centers. The total enrolment in 6 public VTCs in west Pokot County has more or less remained steady at low levels. Due to limited places available in VTCs, only a small proportion of eligible school leavers are absorbed (at most 30%). Every year less than a half of those graduating from primary schools either join the VTCs for artisan training or enroll directly for apprenticeship training within the county.

County Bursary Kitty

The department allocates an annual 400 million bursary kitty towards needy and vulnerable students from the county. More than 100,000 students in universities, colleges, vocational training institutions and secondary schools have benefited form the kitty.

Lands, Housing, and Physical Planning

Housing

  • The Housing section in the Lands Department handles;
  • Construction of housing units
  • Slum upgrading in Kapenguria municipality
  • Establishment of Appropriate Building Technology (ABT) center

    ‌Land Administration
  • The section deals with;
  • Establishment of Lands Registry
  • Digitization of records
  • Establishment of land control boards

Land Development

The land, housing, physical planning and urban development has done the following activities:

  • Connection of street lights in urban centres including Ortum, Chepareria, Turkwel, Chepkono, Lomut, Kabichbich Alale, Sigor, Lomut, Kacheliba among others
  • Construction of 40 toilets in Parua, Amakuriat and Chepareria
  • Tarmacking of inner roads at Ortum And Chepareria
  • Rehabilitation of 18 municipal roads among them Comboni-Bondeni Road, Cooperative-St. Mary’s-Sakas Road And Deliverance Church-Mawingo Road
  • Rehabilitation of Kapenguria dumpsite
  • Establishment of geographical information system (GIS) laboratory in partnership with Food and Agriculture Organization(FAO)
  • Physical planning of urban towns like Lomut, Nyangaita, Akiriamet, Ptikit and Chesta
  • Refurbishment of bus park at Makutano town

Physical Planning

The section is mandated with the following roles;

  • Preparation of Local Physical development plans
  •   Preparation of spatial plan
  • Preparation of Part Development Plans
  • Preparation of subdivision schemes
  •  Acquisition of title deeds for public land
  • Management of the Geographic Information System lab in collaboration with the Department of ICT

Survey

The survey section handles the following roles

  • ‌ Digitization of county land maps
  • Cadastral survey
  • Purchase of survey equipment
  • Land subdivision of group ranches and demarcation of trust land and
  • Documentation of settlement schemes‌

Urban Development
‌    The Urban Development engages in the following activities;

  • Installation of street lights
  • Tarmacking and opening up of roads
  • Construction of parking bays
  • Construction of toilets
  • Beautification by flowers and trees
  • Purchasing land and setting up dumpsites
  • Construction of drainage system
  • Purchase of land
  • Erecting the signage

Tourism, Culture, Gender and Social Development

The mandate of the department is to undertake formulation, coordination, administration of policy and programs with respect to promotion of Tourism, Culture, Sports, Youth, Social and Children Services functions. The department has the responsibility to provide an enabling environment for all stakeholders in the sector.

Main Tourist Attractions
Tourism sites in the county have largely remained unexploited. For instance tourist attraction sites in the county include (Nasolot Game reserve), scenic sites, escarpments (Marich escarpment, Kaisagat viewpoint, Mtelo and Koh hills), ecotourism and Turkwel Dam remain untapped. Others tourism attractions include the rich Pokot Culture and artefacts in Kapenguria museum, curio shops and wildlife. Apart from these, the County is a proud home of the famous “Kapenguria Six” Cells that is found in Kapenguria Museum.

Main Wildlife
There are a variety of wild animals at the Nasolot Game Reserve. The animals include Elephant, Buffalo, Hyena, Impalas, Leopard and Lions. Currently, there are more than 160 elephants and more than 20 leopards in the County. The elephants found in Nasolot game reserve are among the largest Elephants found in the world. Human-wildlife conflict due to drought and encroachment of the wildlife habitat which has led to crop destructions and human deaths is the main challenge.

Trade, Industry & Cooperative Development

The Department of Trade, Industry, Energy, Investment and Cooperative Development comprises five sections; Trade Development, weights and Measures, Industrialization, Energy, Investment and Cooperative Development. Its mandate is outlined in the Fourth Schedule Part Two of the 2010 Constitution as Trade development and regulations which includes: -Markets infrastructure development, Trade licensing regulation, Enforcement of fair-trade practices and Development of Cooperative Societies.

Industry and  Trade

There are several markets in the county. The main ones are Kapenguria in West Pokot Sub-County and Chepareria in Pokot South Sub-County. Other Market Centres include: Ortum, Kabichbich, Sigor, Lomut, Chesegon, Kacheliba, Orolwo, Sarmach, Cheptuya, Kanyarkwat, Serewo, Kiwawa, Kamelei, Kasei, Tamkal, Nyangaita, Orwa, Sina, Tapach, Kamketo,Kachemogen, Kapsangar,Chepkono, Kaptabuk, kapsait, Chepkondol, Sebit, Kodich, Konyao, and Alale. There are no industrial parks in the county. There are also no major industries processing finished products. The main economic activities in the county urban areas include: retail and wholesale trading, fresh produce and cereals businesses, entertainment and hospitality businesses, service industries including motor garages, cyber cafes, law firms, livestock auctions, private education businesses, honey processing, banking and financial services, real estate enterprises and road transport services. Most of these investments fall under the Micro, Small and Medium enterprises category.

‌Industrial Development.
‌• Advocacy for creation of conducive Industrial Environment
‌• Undertake profiling of industrial investments in the County.
‌• Collaborate with other agencies in the Development of County Industrial Investment Plans.
‌Energy Infrastructure
‌• Working with Rural Electrification Authority (REA) to connect electricity to rural areas.
‌• Working with Kenya Power and KETRACO to boost power coverage in the county.
‌• Partnering with prospective energy investors within and outside the County.

The main source of energy in the county is fuel wood which accounts 90 per cent of the energy needs of the county population. Petroleum energy is another source accounting for 5 per cent energy needs. Despite the presence of Turkwel Dam, which generates electricity, connection is still low with only 2 per cent of the population accessing electricity and only 10 trading centres connected with power. Electricity power outages are also prevalent in the county. Paraffin, which is another source of energy, is used by 8 per cent of population. Other sources of energy in the county include charcoal and solar. The county has a high potential for solar energy which remains untapped.
Energy is one of the infrastructural enablers of the three pillars of Vision 2030 and the level and intensity of commercial energy use is a key indicator of the degree of economic growth and development.

Electricity connections for domestic use, small commercial, industrial use and street lighting and the average annual pump prices and monthly pump prices in the County are relatively lower. Electricity for domestic use are Low voltage level (240 /415kV) users while Small commercial are medium commercial and industrial customers user are medium at Voltage level (11&33 kV).

Water, Environment, Natural resources, and Forestry

‌ The department of Water, Environment and Natural Resources is mandated with the management of water resources; provision of water services; reclamation of degraded land and ASALs into vibrant economic development areas; protection and exploitation of natural resources; conservation practices, protection and management of county forests and game reserves; promotion of farm and dry land forestry development; promotion of clean and secure environment by controlling air pollution, outdoor advertisement and other public nuisance. The departments consist of two main departments; department of Water and department of Environment and Natural Resources. The department of Environment and Natural is further divided into department of Environment, land reclamation, forestry, Natural Resource, Mines and Geology and Wildlife.

Forestry Development

  •  1,603,000 seedlings plated in Kamatira Forest, Kapkoris hills and various schools across to county to achieve 10% tree cover.
  • 41 hectares of school land planted.
  • More than 25 women, youth, green schools’ groups established.
  • Three laws and policies developed on forest conservation.
  • 3,000 hectares of water catchments, riverbanks, swamps, and fragile lands protected.

Climate change adaptation and mitigation

  • More than 10 acres of dryland forest farms established.
  • 50,000 energy saving jikos donated to households.
  • 20 community trainings conducted on climate change.
  • Two climate change mitigation policies established, such as Climate Change Act.

Pastoral Economy, Agriculture and Irrigation

Agriculture is a fundamental pillar for sustainable development that seeks to meet the needs of present generation without compromising those of future generation. The department of agriculture contributes immensely to the economy of West Pokot County. The department mandate is to promote and facilitate production of food and Agricultural raw materials for food security and Income, advance agro-based industries and agricultural exports and enhance sustainable use of land resources as a basis for agricultural enterprises.

Main Crops Produced

The main food crops produced include maize, beans, sorghum, fingermillet, green grams, Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes and bananas. The farmers also grow horticultural crops which include fruits (mangoes, pawpaw, oranges, tree tomato and passion fruit) and vegetables both exotic and local (onions, cabbages, kales, pumpkins, such a, cowpeas, saga, peas and carrots among others). The fruits and vegetables contribute immensely to food security as farmers use it for food as well as generate income to the households. Cash crops grown in the County include coffee, pyrethrum, sunflower and tea which still has small acreage. There is high potential to expand area under cash crops when market is streamlined.

Livestock Breeds

The main livestock breeds in the county are the indigenous cattle (Zebu), sheep, goats, poultry and donkeys. Also introduced to the county are the dairy cattle, camels, Sahiwal cattle, Galla goats, dairy goats, dorper sheep, exotic poultry and rabbits. In terms of estimated population, there are 789,300 indigenous cattle, 74,500 dairy cattle, 200 sahiwal cattle, 634,355 indigenous goats, 6,000 galla goats, 400 dairy goats, 529,376 indigenous sheep 95,550 wool sheep, 4,000 dorper sheep, 533,000 indigenous poultry, 55,980 exotic poultry, 35,271 camels and 41,943 donkeys.These livestock types and breeds are distributed in all the four sub-counties in varied numbers depending on the climatic conditions and rate of adoption of introduced breeds.

Public Service ICT and Decentralized Units

The Public Service Management is mandated to coordinate effective county administration and provision of quality public services, effective and efficient management of human resources, County records management services, legal services and public Communication.

Department’s Objectives 

  • ‌Training and capacity building
  • ‌Staff performance management
  • ‌Developing HRM policies
  • ‌Developing county transport policies
  • ‌Conducting civic education

The department has achieved the following

  • Trained 15 officers on HRD policy formulation and 9 officers on senior management course at KSG.
  • ‌Approved HRM Strategic plan.
  • Improved ICT integration in the County.
  • ‌Sensitized 130 staff on Performance Management.
  • ‌Prepared more than 50 newsletters to date
  • ‌Improved coordination, management and supervision of decentralized functions and services

 

Last Update: December 21, 2021
December 2, 2021 480 DEBORAHWest Pokot County
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