Raila Odinga Urges Governors to Think Ahead and Out of the Box to Build Prosperous Counties

ODM Leader Raila Odinga has called upon governors to focus on creating opportunities to grow economically at a time when the resources in the country are dwindling.

Odinga said that it was time the leaders stopped their political rhetoric and focus on developing their counties using the available resources by focusing on value addition.

While adding that the upcoming referendum on BBI has the potential to unlock endless opportunities on the agricultural sector, he noted that Kenyans need to see counties working closely with the National Government to expand investment in agriculture and livestock.

In a statement posted on his social media pages, he urged governors to weed out cartels milking the public coffers dry.

“We need to see more efforts being put to address corruption in this sector and to break up the cartels that reap from where they did not sow. A number of counties have done a commendable job with regard to improving road infrastructure in rural areas. More however needs to be done with regard to maintaining the roads whose main purpose is getting goods to market more efficiently and effectively.”

Building a prosperous nation has been our aspiration and a key national goal right from independence in 1963.

For more of my thoughts on this, click on the link below;https://t.co/SM9bGMFswQ

— Raila Odinga (@RailaOdinga) September 23, 2020

Odinga further pointed that rural infrastructure was key to transforming agriculture into a prosperous venture.

Here is Raila’s take on the future of devolution in the counties…

“With proper focus and commitment, counties can go beyond roads and venture into building light rail networks linking agricultural fields to markets. That kind of investment would be transformative with regard to trade and movement of people and good in rural areas.”

“We need to see more transformative actions to address the fragility witnessed in food production. In many rural areas, a lot of food goes waste because of absence of structured storage and cooling facilities thus continuing to undermine the potential of this sector to help turn around the size of our national cake.”

“In different parts of this country, potatoes, fruits, vegetables and even milk rot or are sold at throw away prizes simply because we haven’t addressed the issue of storage of fresh produce. The farmers are virtually on their own with scanty information on where there may be greater need for their produce, how to get to those venues and what to do with what has not been sold.”

“I am well aware that addressing these these gaps will require adequate funding and that what counties get, even with the intervention that saw the President commit additional Sh50 billion, is hardly enough. But I am also aware that some of our governors are actively exploring possibilities of asking for conditional grants from the national government particularly for Covid 19 economic recovery.”

“That ability to think ahead and out of the box, not the usual rhetoric and routine fire-fighting measure is what will put the country on the path to expanding the size of the cake for equitable sharing.”