Carry your cross, Kidero tells Governors
Nairobi Governor Evans Kidero on Sunday sharply differed with the Council of Governors on who was supposed to account for money taken to the counties.
The governor said each of his counterparts should take full responsibility for all the finances that were directed at them by the national government, a position the Council of Governors has contested in the past.
“We as governors should take full responsibility. The accounting officers are people we employ. Therefore, the buck stops at our doors. We cannot say someone else is accountable,” Dr Kidero said.
The city governor also revealed that he had fired 190 people who had been involved in misuse of funds allocated in his county, the most populous in the country.
“We are not ready to let the money given us misused by anybody,” said the governor when he attended a church service at Pentecostal Assemblies of God in Bahati, Nairobi.
Although the council appeared to relax its earlier position on who was supposed to account for the money at the weekend, it insisted that the county bosses should not be held responsible for each and every action by their juniors.
The council, which assembled in Mombasa over the weekend, has already gone to the Supreme Court for an advisory opinion on who was to respond to financial irregularities in the counties.
The governors also ignored summons by the lawmakers to answer to financial concerns raised by the Controller of Budget and the Auditor General.
The move irked the lawmakers who have vowed to discipline the county chiefs by denying them funds through the suspension.