Former civic leaders in Nyamira County have faulted the proposal by Jubilee MPs to reduce the number of counties from 47 to 10.
Led by former Nyamira County Council secretary Geoffrey Obure, the civic leaders said the move will take the country back to where development of the rural areas was almost impossible.
Obure, who was backed by former civic leaders John Obaigwa, Joseph Mogeni and Samuel Moseti said the present counties had brought services closer to wananchi besides receiving development funds that have made it possible for the rural areas to develop.
“We are disturbed that the proposal by the proponents of ‘boresha maisha’ are now out to take us back in terms of development instead of proposing how best the billions of shillings received in counties can be utilised,” said Obure.
The leaders claim that corruption and not the number of counties has made it difficult to provide good health services, good roads and improve agriculture for the benefit of the people.
The Jubilee architectures of the Boresha Maisha bandwagon for the proposed referendum want the current 47 counties re-drawn into only ten regions namely Coast, Nyanza, Western, Nairobi, Central, South Rift Valley, North Rift Valley, Upper Eastern, Lower Eastern and North Eastern.
They argue that the current number of counties is to blame for the huge wage bill that has been gobbling a big chunk of the government’s budgetary allocations, leaving only a small bit to take care of development issues.
The proposal to increase money for development in counties is also partly in line with the opposition Cord’s OKOA Kenya and Isack Rutto’s Pesa Mashinani campaign for more funds.
While Boresha Maisha is keenly campaigning for the reduction of the number of counties, Okoa Kenya and Pesa Mashinani are pushing for the amendment of the constitution to increase the budgetary allocation to counties to 45 per cent of the national budget.