CORD claims Jubilee Government is killing devolution

CORD leaders Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka talk to IEBC chair Issack Hassan at the Leisure Lodge Beach Resort in Kwale County, Friday. With them is LSK’s Mwangi Kimani. [PHOTO: Maarufu Mohamed/standard]

By David Ochami and  Tobias Chanji

Kwale, Kenya: CORD leaders Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka Friday claimed the Jubilee Government is using tactics used by the Jomo Kenyatta regime to abolish the independence constitution and Parliament in the 1960s, to kill devolution.

“Fifty years down the road we are seeing a repeat of what happened exactly 50 years ago,” said Raila.

The former Prime Minister said the Jubilee administration has spread propaganda that counties are expensive to run and the elected governors are arrogant.

The two claimed the government wants to recreate and retain the structures of a strong centralised system with its privileges for personal and group gain. They were addressing the Law Society of Kenya’s annual conference at the Leisure Lodge Hotel in Diani, Kwale County.

 They said CORD supports the governors’ push for a referendum to increase revenue allocation to county governments to 45 per cent from the current 15 per cent and more constitutional powers of the Senate.

They used the phrases “controllers of the centralised system,” “forces of the status quo,” “powerful enemies” and “a core elite” to describe what they said are people within the Jubilee regime frustrating devolution through a concert of strategies.

 

Civil unrest

Raila said the national government has deployed various mechanisms to ensure “devolution dies a slow and painful death”, including ordering governors to seek government persmission when travelling abroad.

Kalonzo claimed that “a core elite seeks to reinvent itself to reap the benefits of a centralised system” and warned that marginalisation of parts of the country could spark civil unrest.

The former VP argued that the 2010 Constitution ought to be amended to end the supremacy stalemate between the Senate and National Assembly, to protect devolution and convert  the Speaker of the Senate into the chairman or president of Parliament.

Raila also announced that he supports constitutional changes to convert Kenya into a parliamentary democracy but will hold back any plans to do so and focus on the referendum proposed by the governor’s to bolster the Senate and devolution.

“The parliamentary system is more accountable than the presidential system,” he said.

Kalonzo added that under the current system, the Executive is not accountable to Parliament.

Speaking at the same forum, the chairman of the Governors’ Council, Isaac Ruto, claimed that “there are very clear signs on the wall” that a clique within the Jubilee administration is fighting to kill devolution under the 2010 Constitution and render the Senate irrelevant”.

Ruto alleged that governors are being harassed and seduced to weaken their resolve on devolution.

He said he supports a parliamentary system of government  and “the ideological positions taken by CORD” on implementation of the constitution and devolution but said  CORD should postpone their ideas for the moment.