Devolution Conferences are starting to sound much like the annual Davos Conferences where the rich and powerful come together and spend millions discussing the fate of the millions who are poor yet things remain the same for this majority, if not worse.
Someone suggested these World Economic Forum (WEF) conferences will achieve nothing for the majority poor until they have a key role in these forums. It is therefore not surprising that the gap between the rich and the poor has increased considerably despite these annual meetings to prevent the same.
The 5th Annual Devolution Conference held in Kakamega came to an end but there’s little to differentiate this conference from the previous ones, except for the fact that the opposition leader Raila Odinga gave a Keynote speech at the invitation of the government.
These conferences are supposed to be about stock-taking; where are we going wrong? Which holes can we plug? Instead what we see is great speeches year after year with nothing tangible. We only circle around the real issues like devolved corruption and warning faceless and nameless individuals of dire repercussions when we know and can arrest them.
It’s not like the corruption happens through black magic! The Auditor General Reports doesn’t just name random counties but affected dockets and the people running them. Parliamentarians call them for questioning and retreat to write reports that are inconsequential. It appears talking about corruption is a pastime activity for politicians.
The circa 6000 delegates who attended the Devolution Conference in Kakamega were mainly the ‘who is who’ in the political and government circles. The real people that made devolution necessary weren’t there. The mama mbogas, hawkers and boda boda riders among other Kenyans in the informal sector who expected devolution to change their lives were not part of the meeting. Just like Davos, the people living in posh areas met to discuss the plight of those in slums without a representative from them.
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