THE Council of Governors has said it has no plans to merge with opposition Cord and push for one referendum.
Cord leaders led by Moses Wetang’ula said at the weekend that their Okoa Kenya movement was negotiating with the Governors over the possibility of a merger since their issues appear to match.
Both groups are separately collecting signatures to demand a referendum that will, among other things, raise county allocations to at least 40 per cent of the latest audited national accounts.
The Cord campaign has the slogan Okoa Kenya (Rescue Kenya) and the Governors’ Pesa Mashinani (Cash to the Grassroots). Yesterday the Governors denied the existence of any negotiations with Okoa over the possibility of merging the two initiatives, insisting that “each will travel on its own energy and fuel”.
The Council of Governors maintained their constitution amendment push is alive and that no amount of threats or incentives will force them to relent.
“Okoa Kenya has its owners. The thing that they have said is their wish. Ours is separate and independent. There are no plans to fuse them into one,” said the governors, through their spokesman Barrack Muluka.
The county chiefs said their signature collection was on and the they will soon launch similar exercises in other counties unless the eight issues they raised are “addressed wholesomely”.
Muluka laughed off claims that the Governors will be forced to abandon their referendum push should the national government scale up funding to the counties after Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee finalises scrutiny of pending financial accounts.
Jubilee plans to quickly pass the latest PAC audit reports, which will raise the allocations to the counties from Sh200 billion is just above Sh300 billion.
“The Governors cannot abandon their Pesa Mashinani push just because of some vague indication that funds will be increased to the counties.
“If the non-referendum issues can be solved in Parliament then there will be no need for a referendum,” said Muluka.
Muluka observed that although some Jubilee governors were forced to cave in to pressure and publicly denounce the Pesa Mashinani initiative, they are supporting the push through low-key campaigns.
“The campaigns may not be extremely exciting on the ground, but they are going on slowly. Some Governors are keeping their heads below the water,” he said.
Meanwhile, Okoa Kenya team member Anthony Oluoch yesterday clarified that the committee has not hit the signatures target yet. “We are targeting five million signatures. Two million is not our target,” Oluoch said.
– the-star.co.ke
