The national government has yet again been urged to fully devolve the road function to combat what has been termed ‘unprecedented attack” towards county governments.
The roads function has been at the epicentre of tussle between the county and national governments with the former persistently calling for decentralisation of roads to be managed from the county level.
Kisii deputy governor Joash Maangi Thursday maintained that county governments were being subjected to a series of attacks and criticism on poor state of roads which were under jurisdiction of national government.
He said many constituents had directed their fury to county governments making the county leaderships lose trust among the locals.
“Time has come for Transitional Authority to heed our calls. We have been subjected to unprecedented criticisms due to poor state of roads which clearly belongs to national governments. This county leadership’s reelection into jeopardy and we cannot relent till the government succumbs to our pressure,” he said.
Maangi said locals were rigid to differentiate roles of county government from those of national government making it difficult for county governments to execute their roles efficiently.
“A local resident is not able to understand a road that should be done by the national government and that that belongs to the county government. All they blame is the county leadership because it’s closer to them,” he said.
He said the confusion was making county government allocate extra resources in upgrading roads that were under the national government leading to deficit in the budget.
“Counties are ready to take over the road function. We have been using our limited resources to upgrade national government roads. Perhaps this is the right time to devolve the function fully,” he said.