President Uhuru Kenyatta will today meet governors at Enashipai Spa and Resort, Naivasha to their grievances in the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI). – By Gerald Gekara.
Hosting the event, Kakamega Governor Wycliffe Oparanya will lead the president and Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga in seeking consensus. This is after governors raised five amendments to the BBI report, joining the growing list of disgruntled parties.
Among the recommendations is the rise in the stakes that could send President Uhuru Kenyatta and ODM chief Raila Odinga back to the drawing board in their campaign to realise BBI.
Among the recommendations includes a clause where the governors want to retain their freewill to chose suitabe deputy governors. This goes against BBI’s recommendation to award the positions strictly according to gender.
They also want powers to hire and fire their deputies, as they do with members of County Executive Committees, given that BBI proposes DGs be given ministerial portfolios.
The county chiefs are also pushing for strengthening the Senate as the Upper House to protect devolution, a radical recommendation that will rattle members of the powerful National Assembly.
Oparanya said that county bosses will be taken through the report by experts, to enable them understand the document.
“As governors, our biggest focus now is mainly how to use the report to entrench and protect devolution, especially in matters to do with the flow of finances. The biggest challenge we have had as the devolution family has been irregular flow of funds from the National Treasury,”
