The Association of Members of County Assemblies (AMCA) has vowed to paralyze operations in all 47 county assemblies starting from Monday.
This follows the lapse of a 14-day notice in which the association had called on the government to address the issue of their salaries, ward fund and security.
The notice comes as some counties including Garissa, Mombasa, Wajir and Mandera have already shut down their assemblies for any plenaries.
According to the association secretary-general Stanley Karanja, the MCAs will make sure that no budget estimates are debated on, a move that will affect service delivery.
The Naivasha East MCA in addition took a swipe at the government for ignoring the plight of the ward leaders adding that they will not be intimidated any longer.
Speaking in Naivasha, Karanja noted that none of their demands has so far been addressed by the government leading to the current impasse.
“The government is not taking our grievances seriously and we have resolved that all the 47 county assemblies shall adjourn indefinitely,” he said.
On the ward fund, he told of their surprise when the government ceded ground and agreed to the Senate oversight fund and an increase in CDF for MPs.
“The President, Governors, Senators, MPs and even Women Reps have a fund allocated to them but for some unknown reasons the MCAs have been forgotten,” he said.
The vocal MCA said that they will continue to agitate for an increase of their salaries from the current Ksh 86,000 to the previous Ksh 165,000 which was slashed on directives from SRC.
“We thought that our demands for wards fund would be among the discussions by the bipartisan committee from the government and the opposition but this has been ignored,” he said.
Karanja added that the MCA will further shoot down any budget proposal that seeks to allocate funds to governors until their demands are met.
The chairman of Naivasha East Bursary fund Phillip Waweru supported calls to review upwards the MCAs’ salaries due to the many demands at grassroots levels.
“Whenever there is a problem, residents first reach out to MCAs who use most of their cash in supporting those in need and hence the calls to increase their salaries,” he said.
This was echoed by another leader Mucoga Ng’ang’a who wondered why the MCAs, unlike other leaders, had been neglected adding that they should also get ward funds like other leaders.
