– AUGUST 25, 2011
Francis Atuoli
Central Organization of Trade Union (COTU) secretary general Francis Atwoli now says MPs should not be trusted with the management of public funds in the coming elections.
The new constitution provides for county governments to be managed by county governors, and senators as representatives at the national level, the two will be elected directly by the electorate.
The governor will be in charge of resources and will oversee the running of the affairs of the county governments. Senators on the other hand will formulate legislation to guide the operations of these units of governments.
Atwoli says though, many of them had shown interest in the running of the affairs of the county governments, their past records in the management of the same was outrageously questionable.
“These people have been tested with the management of the public funds in their constituencies and they have failed. How will they manage a whole county with several constituencies?” he paused adding; “Projects have stalled others are non- existent, there is a lot of corruption.”
The COTU boss is instead calling for young and able leadership with a clear past records in the overseeing of the public money in the counties. He says there is able leadership from outside parliament that can serve the public better without the baggage of corruption and inefficiency.
His sentiments come against a heightened backdrop of rising interests from former and current legislators to manage the devolved funds at the county level.
He says it was a mistake to place the running of the Constituency Development Funds (CDF) under legislature.
“Legislature is the peoples’ watchdog against the executive how can it be its own regulator? There is top conflict,” he says.
He was however, disagreed by Chepalungu MP Isaac Ruto who said his concerns were unfair against MPs.
“The constitution emboldens strong institutions and not personalities,” he says.
The constitution provides for not less than 15 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to the county units and has also overhauled the running of these funds with proper checks and balances in place, a clear departure from the past record.
Currently the law which is in transitional period provides 2.5 percent devolution of funds into the constituencies (CDF).
The CDF’s National Management Board is an arm of parliament. This means it does not have proper independence to govern the funds against abuse by people entrusted with the responsibilities.
This aspect reduces it into a mere rubberstamp authority making compliance enforcement ineffective thereby negating fiscal discipline in its operations.
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