Governors pledge to support Big Four agenda

What you need to know:

  • Chairman of Council of Governors Josphat Nanok pledged to rise above political interests and work with the government for the good of Kenyans.
  • Governor Nanok said the county leaders learned valuable lessons from experiences of the first five years of devolution.

  • It was also the first summit to be held under relatively less atmosphere of acrimony.

President Uhuru Kenyatta Saturday chaired the first summit involving national and county governments for the first time since his re-election. It was also the first summit to be held under relatively less atmosphere of acrimony.

A statement from State House indicated the two levels of government have resolved to partner with the national government in the implementation of President Uhuru Kenyatta’s Big Four development agenda.

The governors led by Chairman of the Council of Governors Josphat Nanok, who is also the Governor of Turkana County, pledged to rise above political interests and work with the national government for the good of Kenyans.

MISTAKES

Governor Nanok said the county leaders learned valuable lessons from experiences of the first five years of devolution and were not willing to repeat mistakes of the past.

The meeting made several key resolutions top of which was an agreement to form a technical team to look into the contentious issue of rationalising the public service.

“The sub-committee will constitute representation from the Ministry of Public Service Youth and Gender, Salaries and Remuneration Commission and the National Treasury,” says a report of the outcomes of the meeting also attended by Deputy President William Ruto and several Cabinet secretaries.

The technical committee is expected to report its findings to the full summit in the next three weeks when the apex body is expected to have its next sitting.

Further, the summit agreed to increase the Roads Maintenance Levy Fund Allocation to counties from the current 15 per cent to 20 per cent.

IFMIS

Earlier in the day, the summit was informed that the agenda to build 500,000 low cost housing by 2022 is now clear with a breakdown being presented by Transport and Infrastructure CS James Macharia

CS Macharia presented a detailed breakdown of how the government intends to implement the project starting with flagship projects that will largely be located in Nairobi City and its environs.

During the meeting, President Kenyatta also directed the ICT Ministry to extend the fibre optic internet backbone to cover the entire country so as to enable the immediate roll out of the Integrated Financial Management Service (IFMIS) to all counties.

VACCINATIONS

In May last year the president cancelled a summit meeting on the eve of the scheduled date despite some governors having arrived in Nairobi for the crucial meeting.

Before the elections some of the pending issues that the summit was yet to discuss included allowing County Governments to borrow short term loans, transfer of various functions, management of pensions funds, historical county debts that were inherited from local authorities and application of vaccinations.

PRINTER

The summit was also set to discuss the fate of members of Inter-Governmental Relations Technical Committee whose three-year term has expired and also whether country governments can own broadcast frequencies.

The issue of unresolved boundaries problems among some counties and also the unwillingness of the Government Printer to publish laws passed by the county governments had also been scheduled.