Nyamira county boss John Nyagarama has admitted that inaugural county units were facing similar challenges and it will take a little while to have a massive impact on the grassroots.
Nyagarama who was addressing hundreds of supporters near his Mosobeti home on Friday vindicated his leadership from alleged slow development and shifted his blame to the national government.
He said the national government was ‘extremely slow’ in processing funds meant for counties and urged residents to give the county leaderships across the time to streamline things at the grassroots.
“I think the challenges many counties are facing are basically similar. This is the first time we are having county units for over fifty years and I think we haven’t really fulfilled many of your expectations. We are facing logistics problems including sluggish releasing or funds by the national government hence affecting growth,” he said.
He said many inaugural governors have taken most of the time trying to put systems that would help the future leaderships hence the perceived slow growth.
“Apart from slow releasing of funds, we are also taking the time to set structures that are for long term. I don’t believe in short term aspects and I am sure what we have done as governors will be very integral in future governments especially the infrastructural plans and deployment of manpower among other things,” he added.
He blamed the media for allegedly highlighting perceived corruption in counties saying most of the reports were biased.
“I call upon the media to be objective in reporting. For instance, they reported that I spent Sh7m in a gate but in the real sense we had only used Sh2.5m with the rest used for refurbishing Nyamira hospital. This means they never investigated,” he said.