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DEVOLUTION AT 10

By GLEN DON


The Devolution conference is entering its final day.
Third day of the Conference " devolution at ten" the theme for the conference is "10 years of Devolution: present and future."
The third day event is to be graced by His Excellency Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua.

If devolution is personified to human being, then, changes could have been seen, or let us compare this Devolution to a child born a decade ago. This child in terms of schooling then his parents could be seeing him in primary level and no more in kindergarten. The parent could be gauging the performance of his child academically, because he's no longer an infant but a child
In terms of growth and development, the child no longer have the first four front milk teeth, the child no longer toddles but is bipedal, the child is approaching adolescent.
This is the happiness of the parent, happy seeing the child developing and growing. Growth from all dimensions and development from all perspectives.

Celebrating Devolution at 10 is personified to child who is holding his 10th birthday anniversary.
Is Kenya happy having the ten-year old Child?
Is devolution achieving its objectives as per the article 174 in chapter 11?
Health sector was devolved and is under County Governments.
Just this year, nurses from about 10 counties threatened to go on strike.
 Some health centres lack adequate health facilities in some counties, for instance, they only have painkillers and the machines in there can only detect malaria, and not any other complicated disease.
Is this satisfactory enough to brag that devolution is with us? What pride do we have?
But again, on a positive note people see health centres within their reach, a centre with inadequate facilities.
Devolution at 10.

The education was partly devolved. The nursery school and vocational training centres are under county.
Is much being done to elevate the Vocational Training Centres to meet or go beyond the standard. The nursery school teacher in various Counties lament over meagre salary and salary delays, decrying over promotion. This year Siaya County added the nursery teachers to a payroll system, permanent and pensionable. Siaya County is just few of the counties that have done so to education sector at county level.
Devolution at 10

Agriculture was partially devolved.
Is County Government working within their mandate to implement agriculture policies. Little remain to be said about it at the county level.
Devolution at 10

Environmental Conservation is a devolved sector. The counties therefore, have the mandate to keep the environment clean, free from pollution and should enhance garbage collection and disposal to maintain hygienic conditions.
Devolution at 10

Infrastructure was devolved
Maintenance of the roads is under County Government. There are roads that are not under National Government, these roads are under County Government but are they being maintained to limit, perhaps I stop taking bad picture of the developments. It is true they are maintaining roads and bridges, are they meeting the standard?
Devolution at 10

A ten-year old child can now chew grind and swallow food on his own without being coerced by the mother.
Our Devolution is still weak despite various tremendous success in some of the sectors including the sectors that seems clearly to dwindle.
The Devolution is ten but cannot stand on its own. 
Counties have the responsibility to collect their own revenue and enable some of their activities run effectively.
If this is the case that a county can stand on its own feet and feed itself, then a wrong image is painted in mind. I is this year when it was seen that Governors were threatening to shut down counties due to lack of funds from National Treasury. They were crying foul over delayed funds from the National Treasury for the fiscal year 2022/23. The County workers also threatened to down their tools since they had not been paid by their bosses. 
Corruption is at stake, Jackson Mandago of Nandi County who the former Governor together with other three were allegedly charged for conspiracy leading to felony, some of other former Governors have corruption case to answer or is linked to corruption this is going by the report by the Auditor General which pin pointed some of the Counties that have untraceable usage of funds, Migori county in the list.
Whom should be blamed? Who should carry the blame?

Council of Governors is composed by 47 Governors and the Chair of the Council is Her Excellency Ann Mumbi Waiguru.
The conference itself have only Governors while Members of County Assembly not invited, the County Executive Committee members are not in the event yet the talk is devolution; are the mentioned people not part of devolution or county.
It is true the County is the face of devolution. The Governors should not only be the attendants of events like such or perhaps we should grace the democracy of representation and stop nagging.

Since the Devolution began working. Governors became the second president after President of the whole state, they were to lead the Counties and be the face of a county.
Seven Governors have faced impeachment through their respective assemblies and two of the seven Governors have been successfully impeached and ousted from power. Two deputy Governors have also been impeached by their assemblies latest being Siaya County Deputy Governor Honourable William Oduol.
The impeachment speaks a lot of our Counties, politics, personal differences escalated to public domain, corruption, self centrism, among others may be contributing factors.
The County Assemblies are always full of disagreement that usually results to fight, Homa Bay County Assembly as an example.
This Devolution of ours should be mature.
Today if not Devolution we could be speaking of constituencies and province, we have had constituencies but we never saw anything fruitful in some of the regions, in fact some of the areas ended up marginalised and continuously considered minorities.

Devolution at 10
Is a gift and we should not allow it fade and fly away 
The present is worse but there is a room to build a future. Future that will make Kenya be paradise, the future that will make every region equated.

By GLEN DON
@DahariAfrica
#EAGLE'E🦅EYE 👁️
#Devolution at 10

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