By; Kenga Cyrus
Mombasa residents should directly benefit from revenue collected from the port of Mombasa.
Human rights defenders said that the county residents were deprived of their constitutional rights of directly benefiting from the port despite the facility being located in Mombasa.
In a statement to newsrooms on Thursday, Francis Auma from Haki Africa said that counties among them Turkana and Narok were benefiting from their natural resources and Mombasa should be accorded the same constitutional right.
Auma said that Mombasa port was the only natural source of revenue but the central government has taken everything.
He said that the move was a suppressive to Coastal counties and he urged the government to rethink its move.
The human rights defender said that the current government was violating Mombasa residents’ constitutional right of getting benefitting from the funds collected from Mombasa port, adding that the funds should be disbursed to the County government for development purposes.
He said that the county was facing poor infrastructure and drainage systems which could be improved through such revenue allocation.
“Both Narok and Turkana Counties gets 20 percent of revenue collected from game serves and oil resources respectively what about Mombasa, Kwale and Taita Taveta?, nothing is set aside for those Coastal Counties,” he reiterated.
Auma said that human rights activists will push for direct revenue allocation for counties with natural resources as stipulated in the constitution.
“Mombasa County should benefit from its port, while Kwale and Taita Taveta Counties reap from their mineral resources,” he noted.
Already, a case seeking clarification of revenue allocation on natural resource and specifically the Mombasa port is pending at the constitutional court.
