Governors must go to work right away
That the gubernatorial elections have now been concluded gives all the 47 devolved units the requisite powers to start rolling out development programmes and improve fiscal discipline to propel growth as envisioned under the broad spirit of devolution.
With 45 governors already sworn in, it is now appropriate to call the country to order and back to business.
More importantly, for counties, it gives the newly-installed or re-elected governors a window of opportunity to think through the various scenarios of what awaits them, so that they may best understand the task ahead if they are to achieve their desired results.
Based on the ambitious promises candidates made to voters, their work is clearly cut out and they must put their best foot forward to meet the people’s expectations, or else, prepare for tough times ahead. Some have since moved into an office with gusto, promising reforms and trying to whip county workers to order to improve service delivery.
That challenges abound goes without saying. To begin with, since county governments have been unable to raise enough own funds and the national government is struggling under the pressure of increasing debt and pending bills, obviously, all governors must tie their hopes to austerity.
They must quickly lower their expectations on hiring more workers and focus more on rationalisation and role re-alignment for optimal productivity. As a matter of fact, they must first start thinking about how to weed out ghost workers and clean up county payrolls.
Governors must recall that the country is in the thick of a ravaging drought. Being a country that relies heavily on rain-fed agriculture, this means many sectors are experiencing low growth.
But the elephant in the room, and which must be addressed urgently, is why the 47 counties paid out only Sh15.9 billion in pending bills out of Sh155.5 billion from the last financial year despite pressure from the Treasury.
It is worrying that the outgoing administrations failed to settle close to Sh139.5 billion in debt, meaning that the new governors have a big burden to address if they are to bring sanity to their devolved units.
It is about time the National Government took the bull by the horns and declared this unbecoming behaviour economic sabotage, which indeed it is, and compel counties to meet their obligations.
Indeed, how the new administrations deal with the pending bills may determine how fast Kenya’s economy will grow. There is only one way to it and that is to sort them out and avoid further accumulation.
