By Felix Njenga
The national government coordination secretariat is set to give a comprehensive report to the national executive over challenges facing the completion of 51 ongoing priority projects being undertaken by government across the country.
Dan Ameyo legal advisor in the Office of the prime cabinet secretary while visiting Kiambu National Polytechnic (KINAP) in their final day of projects in central Kenya said that the secretariat is on a mission to verify the actual status of 51 priority projects that the government has identified with Technical Vocational ETs being one of them.
“Ours is to check the actual status of the projects and get to know whether there are challenges and together the whole of government approach to know how we can be able to resolve any outstanding challenges so that the projects can be completed on time and give the benefits that were intended for the wananchi are realized,” Ameyo said.
He said that the projects are critical that they are completed on time and challenges resolved quickly.
He said that all the projects are on different stages of completion and are ongoing where the intentions of the projects to benefit the public will be realized.
” There could be delays in disbursement of funds but all these projects are government funded and those which are donor funded they are on track of being complete and their benefits realized,” he said.
He added that the assessment and verification of projects is being undertaken in the whole country to ensure that Government programs are completed on time and within the set budget.
“We have a total of 51 priority projects under the Bottom-up Economic Transformation Agenda that the committee is closely monitoring their progress and completion so that the intended beneficiaries who are the citizens are able to reap the benefits for which the government decided to do the projects,” he said
He however said that the development of the country has relied more on the technology arising from TVETs and relying less on university graduates.
” The technology in TVETs is the driving agent for the future. The young men and women should embrace TVET as it is the way to go in developing this country
Sammy Waititu KINAP principal said that the national government coordination secretariat the government visit will give a report on what is needed to be done in the in dealing with the challenges being faced by the institution.
” The government has given support to the institution which has helped it to grow in a big way. KINAP is one of the biggest project by the government in Kiambu county and is not a university as it enrols students who want to acquire technical skills,” he said.
He noted that the institution has a shortage of training staff due to the high number of students enrolling for courses and Aldo face a challenge of teachers retiring.
” We are requesting that the government add more teachers as teachers are continuing to retire and also the increased enrolment require more teachers. Earlier on we had 5,000 students and now we are almost 10,000 and we are expecting the number to rise to 15,000 during September intake,” he said.
He said that the institution has another challenge of lack of student walk way since the institution main entrance is located along the busy Kiambu road where students are often knocked do own by vehicles with dire need of a pedestrian walkway and a fly over for students to be passing through safely.
” Kiambu road is narrow and the students are many where there is conflict of students and vehicles due to lack of pedestrian walk way,” he said.
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