The Bomas Draft Constitution received a lot of opposition through a referendum call led by Raila Odinga , The President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Deputy William Ruto among other leaders.
But right now most of them are seeing the higher advantage it had than the current constitution. The ever growing burden in the Kenya economy has called the leaders to gang up and call for referendum.
The calls for a constitutional reform were ignited after the handshake between former Prime Minister Raila Odinga and President Uhuru Kenyatta.
The decision to have the handshake was based on the fact that the country was divide greatly by Presidential elections. The top communities enjoying the majority say in national matters. So to root for inclusivity the top leaders formed the building bridges initiatives which collects views from Kenyans in order to table proper tenets to consider in constitutional reform.
Mombasa Governor Hassan Joho and civil society organizations in the county on Wednesday differed over the levels of government that Kenya should have.
Our livelihood in this county of Mombasa is in the service industry – Governor Joho. #NTVToday pic.twitter.com/M3ZN7KKnib
— NTV Kenya (@ntvkenya) December 5, 2018
While Joho proposed the creation of a three-tier government to add to the national and county governments, the CSOs led by Haki Africa said this will be an unnecessary extra burden to Kenyans.
Joho said Kenyans want to go back to the Bomas Draft Constitution which had proposed 12 regional governments, and the retention of the 47 county governments.
“There is no harm in creating a third tier of government which can be allocated 30 per cent of the national revenue and the counties remain with the 15 per cent and the national government will have 55 per cent,” Joho split.
He spoke at the School of Government in Mombasa on Wednesday where the Building Bridges team held a forum to collect views from Mombasa residents.
Haki Africa’s Hussein Khalid said though devolution has done more for otherwise forgotten places in the country than the national government would have, there is no need for an additional tier of government.
“Two are enough,” he said.
He noted already the two tiers have seen Kenyans overburdened with tax as both the national and the county government want to collect levies from their residents.