Counties stare at bleak future with selfish leaders

Counties were purposely created in the 2010 brokered post-election violence Constitution to address causes of inequality, economic imbalances, marginalisation and historical injustices in Kenya. Ten years later, the dream of a prosperous indivisible nation is still elusive.

Seven years after the creation of devolved units, counties still don’t have robust infrastructure and social amenities due to financial constraints and lack of expertise to undertake such projects. 

The proposed selective reduction of resource allocation to devolved units on the tenth anniversary of the Constitution is a glaring ploy to perpetuate marginalisation and eventually kill county governments the way regional governments were killed in 1960s ostensibly to foster national unity.

The damage caused by the Commission on Revenue Allocation (CRA) proposal in its present format is a catalyst of ethnic division never seen in years. Some counties were set to receive less than others. The tone of the Senate debate on revenue division relegates leaders to village elders in a national institution.   

Once again, nothing could have been more appropriate and complementary to the constitutional objectives and the dream changes than bridging the political and economic divide as proposed by President Uhuru Kenyatta and ODM leader Raila Odinga. Unity in diversity and one indivisible nation has lately been the clarion call of the two leaders.

The postmortem of the country’s problems, the first of a kind by the two political rivals, calmed the ever rising political temperature and rekindled national unity in a polarised nation. The leaders undertook to address contentious sections in the supreme law by forming a team of 14 eminent persons to collate views from Kenyans on the document whose delivery in 2010 was engulfed in controversy. 

However, gains brought by the March 9, 2018, handshake and hope of a better country contained in the Building Bridges Initiative report could be reversed by the acrimonious debate on the division of revenue and ongoing premature presidential succession campaigns.  

The Kenya National Dialogue and Reconciliation Agreement that created the current Constitution was a perfect opportunity for reflection and re-examination of national ethos. We are about to squander another golden opportunity to make Kenya a better place to live in.

One of the Agenda 4 items in the 2008 Accord signed by former President Mwai Kibaki and Opposition leader Raila pushed for unity in diversity. The Accord signatories selected a team of constitutional experts to oversee the harmonising of drafts.

Earlier, the progressive Bomas Draft Constitution did not see the light of day in divisive referendum campaigns that spilled into one of the bloodiest 2007 General Election in which hundreds of lives were lost, property of unknown value destroyed and more than 500,000 uprooted from their homes.

Independence Constitution was another progressive document but was mutilated beyond recognition, leading to street protests for reforms during President Daniel arap Moi’s regime.    

Without the political goodwill, correction of the society’s ills remains a tall order. Counties are suffering because our political leaders have abdicated their roles.

An example of such leaders is Deputy President William Ruto who led campaigns against promulgation of the Constitution in 2010 and is seemingly still uncomfortable with reviewing the supreme law today. Is the future of the country brighter with such leaders?

 [The writer is a freelance Journalist. Email: patina@ yahoo.com]