The national government has been called upon to expedite the process of releasing funds to various counties in the countries.
This came forth when Bungoma County governor Wycliffe Wangamati paid a courtesy call on Kisumu Governor Anyang’ Nyong’o on Wednesday evening.
The duo decried that the current delay of funds has stalled development projects in the devolved units with Wangamati citing that Bungoma county was yet to receive finance into its kitty since last year November.
The counties, Wangamati said were in a financial crisis adding that most health facilities did not have money to acquire medicine and also pay their workers.
“Educations bursaries have also been hit hard. In Bungoma we had increased the funding to 400 million from 180 million but the citizenry still can not benefit from this course,” said the Bungoma county boss.
On his part, Nyong’o claimed that the government had so much power over finances and stated that it was necessary for the country to consider having federation states to tame this menace.
“The funds they get are first prioritized to pay the heavy debts they have imposed on us and then pay themselves and they hardly think about us,” stated Governor Nyong’o.
He also took a jab at the national government for borrowing a lot of money without consulting the various county bosses.
Regarding privitisation of sugar industries in the region, the duo stated that it was necessary to do a lot of research and weigh the remifications of selling the companies to private partners.
"Some of these millers have very large nuclear farms with huge potential which if not well checked will yield to even more losses," stated the county chiefs.
The two suggested that it would be better for the industries be owned by the county governments rather than selling the farms at a throw away price.