Is a ward in Kakamega east district (split from the larger Kakamega district) of western province, Kenya. It is part of Shinyalu constituency and the Kakamega county council.
The people of Murhanda ward are the Isukha, a subgroup of the Luhya community.
The main economic activity here is maize and sweet potatoes for subsistence. Cattle, sheep, goats, chicken, ducks and dogs – Lubao market, the largest market for canines south of the Sahara is just next door – are all reared on small scale. The western province’s rural absolute poverty index report 2005/6 reflects the ward’s economic muscle to be 53.5 of adult equivalent; 47.5 and 54.4 at household and individuals levels respectively (where absolute poverty line is living on less than Ksh. 1,562 per month)
There are 14 primary schools against 5 secondary schools. The ward is sparsely populated with most people literate – males: 51.1; females: 57.7 – as is projected at the provincial literacy survey.
Some of the national / international personalities from this ward include: victor Musoga – former provincial commissioner central province; Nicholas Musonye – current chair CECAFA; and the late Hon. Charles Lugano Lilechi – the 4th Shinyalu constituency member of parliament.
The ward has famous traditional medicine-men and traditionalists. Some of the very old herbs species still exist on the banks of rivers Isiukhu; Lukusitsi; Shiaviranga and Shielelwa – the main important rivers trellising the ward.
One of the main rain making sub-clans of western Kenya – the Batsunga come from Murhanda ward
The main airstrip supplying the provincial headquarters of western province, the Kakamega airstrip is established in Murhanda ward. However, hardly have residents of Murhanda ward ever consumed services offered by the airstrip – air travel as passengers or for commercial transportation of goods – save for the recent airlift of the late area member of parliament, Hon. Charles Lugano Lilechi who came from Murhanda ward.
Road network coverage is good with intensified organic footpaths supplying at least every homestead.
Mobile phone network coverage is provided by the major local service providers, Zain and Safaricom with their transmission stations over a radius of 10 kilometers from the focus of Murhanda ward. Such proximity of transmission points has often supplied weak phone signal on most parts of the ward for mobile phone users.
The eastern transect of Murhanda ward borders the Kakamega forest – the only remnant of the equatorial rain forest in Kenya – which is an extension of the Busitema forest in Eastern Uganda – which qualifies Murhanda ward as a Forest Adjacent Community, FAC.
