The Council of Governor (CoG) on Tuesday renewed their rivalry against Members of Parliament in a strongly worded statement faulting the legislators for not performing their duties in support of counties.
In a statement, CoG chairman Josephat Nanok accused the National Assembly of failing to enact legislation to allocate fund to counties for building roads.
He explained that the CoG through an Intergovernmental Budget and Economic Council (IBEC), chaired by Deputy President William Ruto signed an intergovernmental agreement which provided
the Fuel levy fund be increased from the current 15% annual allocation to 20% to take care of the increased need for road maintenance in the counties.
"It is appalling that even after a signed joint agreement championed by the Deputy President himself, the National Assembly has failed to trigger this process by neither having the agreed increments for the Road Maintenance Levy Fund in the Division of Revenue Bill 2018 nor in the Roads Bill 2017 by retaining it at 16%.
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"The National Assembly has also completely disregarded the retention of Class D as County roads by reclassifying previously County roads to National Government roads," the Turkana Governor stated.
Nanok further called on the Senate to protect the interests of the counties adding that they had limited alternative revenues.
"We, therefore, urge the Senate to exercise its function under Article 96(1) of the Constitution to serve and protect the interests of the counties by respecting the signed intergovernmental agreement while considering the Roads Bill.
"The agreement had been negotiated in good faith by all parties, were deliberately consulted extensively with all key stakeholders and willfully appended their signatures.
"Currently, as it is, the County governments have limited alternative resourcing avenues due to the lack of national legislation to guide on the same and any reduction of Counties' allocation will ultimately affect overall County road sector operations have now been negatively impacted by ongoing heavy rains," his statement read in part.
The CoG Governor added that the County heads respected the spirit of the Constitution that promoted the consultation and cooperation and urged the National Assembly to respect it and live by it.
[caption caption="Statement by Council of Governors"]
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