Devolution: A double edged sword

If you thought the gap between the rich and poor was bad, devolution made/is making it worse. I think Kenya needs less than 20 counties, the rest are a total waste of public funds. We are overrepresented. Just think of how many hands a shilling has to pass through to reach the common man from the national treasury. In most cases, the last cent is pocketed by the MCA. When devolution was implemented, we still have MPs etc. Those posts were not scrapped. The result is that the new system was built on top of an older one, instead of replacing it fully. The wage bill will grind us to a halt and by the time we know it, we will be in a hyper inflationary environment where CBK prints more money to pay debts. The economy is in the doldrums and G.O.K accountants are busy massaging GDP figures to fool the outside world. This year, MPs raised their pensions. The problem is that the people who can push for these changes are the same ones who benefit from the status quo, so this will never see the light of day. A conflict of interest would never allow MPs to pass laws that don’t favor them. We have MPs, MCAs and Senators. One has to give. Otherwise, we are FUCKED!! I know 3 MCAs who roll in V8s. With a salary of circa 300k, go figure how much they steal. Don’t forget that this is the lowest rank.

The average Kenyan engages his tribal radar, prejudices, sentiments before engaging his brain cells that are God given. So keep on wishing. Kenya is f**ked for a longtime.

The day we remove our heads from tribal based politics and start voting na akili ndio tutaona mwangaza.

I only agree with you about the rich and the poor. You don’t expect trickle economics to work anywhere in the world. In the US, they give tax breaks to the ‘reach’. Around here, they give their favourite campaign managers and ‘sons’ to manage toilets that we pay them to manage through our taxes.

However, I won’t say I’m happy with the way my country is going. It’s just corruption.

I pray we go broke the Greek way. Hapo bailout with be painful and the first casualty will be our politians

Kuna ‘successful’ countries that remain divided along tribal/ethnic lines.

Shida yetu ni lack of accountability and lack of thoughtfulness in everything we do. Tunakataa kufikiria permanently.

Kenya is fucked up psychologically.

We have zero national consciousness in our leaders. Men and women who have no loyalty to the country.

And the symptoms of that are the corruptions and tribalisms and lack of any remorse.

Unfortunately, this is very hard to treat.

There are counties made up entirely of members from one tribe.
Where does your logic fit in their voting patterns?

I think we cannot not wake up until we are forced to. Let everyone with access to the public coffer steal everything in gunias. Let public schools land be grabbed, let all patels block our rivers and sell us water, let NCPB never take our grains, let our industries all crumble, let medicine in hospitals be a rumour, then when the majority are finally hit hard, let the national anger reach breaking points, let the rich feel insecure to flaunt their wealth …then a revolution begins…

na bado kuna nyani zinataka counties zikusanywe into 14 regions. ma’ha’fakin polishitians

Funny how folks loathe tribalism on this forum but get very personal on matters politics.

Let’s separate issues. I repeat, let’s separate issues.

Devolution is a good thing and in some areas there are significant changes. It’s good to remember that after many years of having a central government, there was little development going on in some rural areas of this country. That’s why Kenyans agreed that a devolved system of government would be better because it would be responsive to their issues.

So far, there have been positive and negative signs of devolution. For example, county governments are responding to the recent floods by releasing emergency funds to repair damaged roads. Such an activity would have taken many years if it was being done by the national government.

On the negative side, corruption is killing devolution. However, that does not mean that devolution is a bad thing. We should deal with corruption and our devolved systems would be working well.

The central government was only as bad as the people running the country; likewise the success and failure of devolution will be determined by the teams running the county governments. You can have good systems of government but if the people are corrupt or incompetent the outcome will be failure. You can also have weak systems, if the Teams are good, they will use their initiative to improve it and make it perform and be success.

Waste of resources is what is killing this country. Its not even the wage bill. As long as you fully account for your receipts, you will be fine. There is no accountability of anything. Individuals are flagged for corruption, cases filed and cases are dropped 2 years down the line. Even when they brag they did not deliver the goods or services. Realistically, counties report to no one. Sometimes parliament flags irregularities but nothing happens. So does the Auditor general. And so the waste continues. People sweat and work hard, are taxed but their money gets literally given away to individuals. And then money gets borrowed internationally to fulfil expenditure needs for the country. Could you do the same thing in your house. That is overpay ( by 5 times) for goods (eg milk, bread, unga, etc) and then go to the bank to borrow?
Pure insult of intellect.

It is difficult to be accountably where diminished state consciousness’ is the norm; leading to recklessness, negligence and uncontainable greed. Laws are created to contain those who are predisposed to break the values of society, to contain and correct harmful behaviour by making such individuals accountable.
Unfortunately, individuals tasked with the responsibility to oversee that the laws are upheld, have failed over the generations, hence enabling a culture of reckless destruction of values, while setting free those who seriously breach the values of society, to do it over and over.

We luck the momentous will and skills to correct unaccountable conduct. A whole spectrum of senior personnel in strategic roles was nurtured in an environment of corruption. It is difficult to train old dogs’ new tricks, requires young dogs whose mind and conduct is not tainted, to be trained to take the helm.