[Mr. Charles Nyachae in a past event. He says poor implementation of programs would further sabotage development at the county level. Photo/nation.co.ke]
Former Constitution Implementation Commission chair Charles Nyachaeon Friday said the biggest challenge to devolution was skewed implementation of development programs.
“Devolution was and still remains the best concept for distributing national resources throughout the country. However, the single most significant challenge to our success has been skewed and haphazard implementation of development programs,” said Mr Nyachae.
Speaking to hivisasa.com in a telephone interview, he said the drafters of the constitution foresaw equitable distribution of resources throughout the various wards and counties in the country, terming the performance of devolved units as less than satisfactory.
“When we passed the constitution, we envisaged a scenario whereby the national government would allocate resources to the devolved units in a fair and equitable manner. In terms of what we see on the ground today, devolved units have however recorded a disappointing performance,” said Mr Nyachae.
He said the entrenchment of devolution in the constitution was meant to expand the people’s participation in the decision making process regarding the utilization of public resources.
“Kenyans wanted a decentralized system of government and resource allocation since the old system had tended to concentrate funds and capacity at levels that were at times inaccessible to them. We commend the devolution concept as the first serious attempt at ensuring that the people’s needs were fully met at a local level,” said the Jubilee aspirant.
Mr Nyachae said he had spoken to political aspirants during a sensitization forum in Nairobi just before the 2013 elections where he had warned them against falling short of Kenyans’ expectations through poor implementation of development projects.
“As I spoke to the aspirants, some of whom are now in power as governors and senators, I warned them against the pitfall of not meeting Kenyan’s expectations in terms of implementing development projects.