Governors can't raise the billions needed for a presidential campaign

Your term ends in three months; how does that feel?

Huge relief. Like Paul of the Bible, I feel I have fought a good fight. It was not easy to be a founding governor where the leaders had to establish a brand new government from scratch. I am happy that as a county, we have been a leader in giving life to devolution. Despite the many challenges I faced, I am elated to witness the end of a successful decade of working for the people of Makueni.

What does a retiring governor do outside politics? What will you miss?

I think I will miss the daily extensive interaction with the residents of Makueni. We have developed a system where the leaders and the people do public business together. As a governor, I enjoyed this immensely. I will not as often visit the popular eating joints as I have been doing as a resident governor. I will definitely miss our work force of over 3,800 staff. A few were difficult, but the majority have been wonderful.

What are you looking forward to?

I will create more time for family, especially my spouse, grandchildren and friends. I intend to research and write about my experiences in public life. I may even write creatively. I have also dreamed of doing a Master’s degree in youth studies.

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In 2013, most senior politicians ran for senate. You chose county, why?

I sought to go to the grassroots so as to use the devolved resources to help change the lives of the majority. I thought one could experiment with reinventing government. I felt that even from one of the 47 counties, one could do innovative work capable of influencing the national level.

What was on your mind the first day you stepped into office as governor?

Those first days I wondered how we were going to do our work without offices, scanty employees inherited from the local authorities and national governments; no systems, processes and procedures; new ministers and principal secretaries’ equivalents who did not have much experience in the public sector; a population that expected a government which was near them to produce an instant development dividend. I used to ask myself: will devolution work or will it abort? Still I kept my faith because I had worked in the national government and I felt the skills used at that level could be deployed at the county level.

What were the most urgent issues in your inbox?

First, to form the government, you begin by recruiting its basic organs, then develop a relationship with the county assembly. We, too, had to do widespread capacity building to make our people understand what the now county government was all about. We had to negotiate with the county assembly and the county commissioner to surrender some office accommodation for us.

You had spent most of your adult life in Nairobi, and there you were in the village. How was the transition?

My spouse and I were raised in the rural setting. One could not ‘remove’ the village or ‘ushamba’ from us! For several years before the county built a residence for the governor, we stayed in our rural home, which is about 43km from Wote, the county’s headquarters. I knew you can’t live away from the people you lead. Of course we always went to Nairobi whenever there was reason to do so.

You have consistently been rated as one of the most successful governors. What did you get right?

Through a public participation of over 100,000 residents, we crafted our Vision 2025. Our first County Integrated Development Plan was based on this vision. So one must begin with a vision.

We then created a third level of government, the people’s government, from our 3,643 villages, up to the county level. We decided that citizens must have a real role in governance. For us, genuine public participation was a must. We opened a system of open contracting, we ensured our government was corruption free, we created our own Makueni Care, also, where people aged 65 and above enjoy free healthcare. We established agro-processing facilities to promote value addition and have endeavoured to offer good terms and environment for our workers. Our successes in the health sector were led by young doctors and staff.

What could you have done better? 

Many things. County governments are still work in progress. We have struggled with enhancing our own source of revenue, especially land rates. More training for staff is necessary. I was not able to get the national county leaders and county ones to work harmoniously due to political party differences. Streamlining community water committees as well as market centre committees is ongoing. We could have had more collaborations with the national government to secure development from the centre.

More work, including addressing alcohol and drug dependency, could have gone into youth programmes. The next administration has its work cut out for it. My aim was to lay a foundation for the devolution house. The others will build a wall and roof.

In retrospect, should counties have been drawn along the defunct provincial boundaries?

The initial Bomas Draft constitution had created a tier of government above the county. Several counties had a regional government. The regional economic blocs are also trying to achieve the programming of counties into another level of governance so that economic activities can be shared. If African countries require regional and even continental unity, counties are too small entities to function optimally independent of one another.

I think economic blocs should be legalised and the same should form the basis for regional layer of lean governance.

It was assumed in 2013 that one or two governors would be strong contenders for the presidency in 2022. Why is this not the case?

Governors don’t lead the major political parties whose leaders make decisions on ultimate leadership. Second, although Kenyans have embraced devolution, the competition between the national and county governments has exposed county leaders as junior partners. Third, Kenyans also still tend to focus on the national leadership for presidency as opposed to county leadership. Moreover, governors can’t raise the billions needed for a presidential campaign.