Devolution Cabinet Secretary Eugen Wamalwa has opened up about his biggest worry as he steers the ministry for the next five years.
The CS said he is worried about rampant corruption which seems to have been devolved to county government from the national government. He termed counties as “incubators of corruption”.
In an interview with Citizen TV yesterday, Wamalwa stated that he is concerned about corruption being “devolved” as well into the counties.
“I’m very concerned with the issue of corruption. We wanted to devolve resources to counties not to devolve corruption,” he said.
Wamlawa said corruption in the counties is an area which he is deeply concerned about.
“This is an area of grave concern and it’s an area we are gonna be addressing. We have the Controller of Budget there, we have the Auditor General; we will be engaging and saying we can’t bury our heads in the sand on the issue of corruption.”
He added that he will also address tribalism-another vice in the county government, because it hurdles the realization of full potential of devolution in the counties.
The CS said corruption and tribalism are not aligned with the spirit of devolution which makes counties the engines of development.
“These counties were supposed to be the engines of development but they cannot be incubator of corruption; they cannot be incubators for tribalism. These are challenged out there in the counties and we must address them.”
He said the oncoming annual week-long Devolution Conference to held in Nakuru next week will address some of these grey areas with a view to find a solution to it.