Nairobi: Governors of most of Kenya’s 47 counties have declared a war on corruption in the country.
Thirty of the newly elected governors are first-timers on the job.
Many of them have hit the ground running since they were sworn in on August 25, giving strong directives, especially in regard to their anti-corruption and cost-cutting agendas.
BBC reported that the governors are making some fantastic discoveries.
For example, the Governor of Kisii, Simba Arati, revealed that the county had only 82 vehicles and yet 256 drivers were on its payroll, some of whom did not even have valid driving licenses.
He also told Citizen TV that there were 861 individuals on his payroll whose job descriptions were not clear, BBC reported.
Another Governor, Wavinya Ndeti, of Machakos county has revealed that some of her government vehicles did not even have number plates and yet budgets had been set aside for the transport department.
A provincial administrator-turned-governor has won praise for his harsh office rules after turning away top officials from a meeting for arriving minutes later than him.
According to Karen Mwangi, the chief executive of Intel Research Solutions in Kenya, these new governors are aware that in five years their work will be assessed by the voters.
County governments were set up because of dissatisfaction with the highly centralized model of governance, which was blamed for an imbalance in resource allocation, development inequalities, the marginalization of some communities, and failure to involve the people in governance.
