Why counties can as well start singing "More money, More problems!"

The American rappers and hip-hop artists that half of Kenya listens to are credited with forever whining about how they are so rich that they now have problems with money.

More money, the artists whine, brings more problems. Our counties can relate to that, because they, too, are having the exact same problem: how to handle sudden riches.

Their solution seems to be a novel one: ask for more money. When the county assembly members were just plain old councillors, they had to make do with relative peanuts. This was, remember, in the era when MPs were allowed to set their own salaries — and they did so at almost every sitting of Parliament.

But the poor councillors had no such powers, and were reduced to skimming off the top of tiny, pothole-filling contracts in their municipal councils.

delivering development

And then came devolution, and with it more money than the councillors — now styled as MCAs — could shake a stick at.

Suddenly, with talk of the referendum all over, MCAs are the most important people around. The Government is pushing them to accept a fat package costing 12 billion shillings, with cars and low-interest home loans literally shoved down the MCAs’ throats.

It gets better — they are able to bribe governors into giving them trips to all sorts of exotic destinations. Woe unto the governor that ignores the pleas for foreign trips: impeachment awaits.

If the MCAs and their governors were actually delivering development to their counties, their quest for more money would be unimpeachable. But this is Kenya, and no such thing is happening in the majority of the counties.

Villagers look on with weariness as MCAs depart for yet another trip abroad, spending money we cannot afford on frivolous treats we cannot understand. In moving from MPs to MCAs, from central Government to counties, it appears we jumped from the central Government frying pan into the county fire. Who will save us from ourselves?