Gachagua’s one-man-one-vote-one-shilling push impractical, CRA says
Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua
What you need to know:
- “From a professional point of view, the one-man-one-vote-one-shilling is just but one parameter and you cannot use it to allocate resources. We are not going to consider that because it never came from any county,” said CRA commissioner Hadija Juma.
The Commission on Revenue Allocation (CRA) has waded into the debate on Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua's push to allocate funds to counties based on population rather than geography, dismissing it as impractical.
The CRA says the ongoing ‘one-man-one-vote-one-shilling' campaign will reverse gains made in equitable distribution of resources to all Kenyans.
The commission maintained that no county had proposed the one-man-one-vote-one-shilling formula as a parameter for allocating resources, saying the process was meant to facilitate equitable development for all Kenyans.
“From a professional point of view, the one-man-one-vote-one-shilling is just but one parameter and you cannot use it to allocate resources. We are not going to consider that because it never came from any county,” said CRA commissioner Hadija Juma.
Speaking when she toured Uasin Gishu County, Ms Juma said CRA will continue to push for balanced development, explaining that the one-man-one-vote-one-shilling proposal will be disadvantageous to some Kenyans.
“We want development to reach each corner of this country and when we use the one-man-one-vote-one-shilling parameter, some Kenyans will be left behind,” the commissioner said.
Uasin Gishu Governor Jonathan Bii, while dismissing the proposal as untenable, demanded equitable sharing of national resources to all Kenyans.
“How will this revenue-sharing formula accommodate the interests of a large-scale farmer who cultivates vast tracts of land to provide food for the rest of Kenyans?” posed Governor Bii.
The county boss called for a balanced revenue-sharing formula that will cater for the interests of all Kenyans, noting that farmers in the North Rift region also contribute to the growth of the country’s economy.
Governor Bii joins leaders from the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands who have termed the narrative being pushed by a section of leaders from the Central Kenya region as promoting unwarranted denigration of certain communities.
The leaders have vowed to advocate for the one-man, one-vote, one kilometre revenue sharing formula- a move likely to complicate further the country’s political landscape.
