Wambora: Reduce counties to tame wage bill

Embu Governor Martin Wambora, who says reducing counties will tame the wage bill. [Photo. file]

Leaders have proposed that the number of counties be reduced to lower the wage bill.

Governor Martin Wambora, former Cabinet Minister Joe Nyagah and host of the region's leaders, said 47 counties were too many for the devolved governance system to be viable and spur development at the grassroots.

Wambora said there was need to reduce the number of governors, senators, MPs, ward reps and other positions that contribute to the huge wage bill that sees counties spend up to 70 per cent of their budgets on recurrent expenditure leaving only 30 per cent or less for development.

“Look at Nigeria, with a population of over 120 million, they only have 36 governors. In Kenya with a lower population we have 47 governors,” said Wambora.

Wambora said instead of the 47 counties, new entities should to be modeled on the regional economic blocs that have emerged since the onset of the devolved system.

On his part, Mr Nyagah called for a parliamentary system where the Head of State will be the president while the head of government will be a Prime Minister and two deputies answerable to Parliament.

The leaders were tabling their views before the Building Bridges Initiative team chaired by Garissa Senator Mohammed Yusuf Haji in Embu town.