The mood in parliament is that MPs are headed for a big clash with Rt. Hon. Raila Odinga over CDF, a Fund created at the turn of the century to correct KANU era unequal resource distribution across Kenya.
Even if ODM MPs align with Odinga’s thinking, there’s no guarantee that others will fall in line.
Hon. Odinga is right on the need to remove implementation from the same group which perform oversight. He can easily battle MPs on this considering CDF has already been ruled unconstitutional.
What he’ll find a hard time doing is convincing Kenyans — the people — that governors are best suited to control the Fund, and achieve what CDF has achieved under the patronage of MPs.
There is also no guarantee that if the Fund is collapsed then the monies will be automatically re-chanelled to counties as shareable revenue.
Most constituencies recieve between 100 million to 150 million shillings. This is a very measly allocation compared to the billions that counties recieve.
Removing this money from MPs and giving it to governors will create a dependency akin to what’s happening in many counties across Kenya — where MCAs are mere flower girls to governors. MPs will become flower girls too.
The manner in which CDF reaches the people of Kenya is not broken. There is no need to fix it. What is broken is the manner in which county funds reach wards. There’s need to fix this. Yet there’s silence here.
Removing CDF or merging it with county funding will not strengthen devolution. The mediocrity and incompetence being witnessed across counties is reason enough to avoid this route.
To force a type of democracy that is not rooted in the lived realities and experiences of a people is to ape foreign concepts without localizing them — which is a recipe for chaos.
Those advising the helmsman to pursue this route are misleading him. This war he’s about to wage is unneccessary and worse, he’s likely to lose it.
