Mandera governor Ali Roba has accused the National Treasury of stifling development by not releasing resources meant for marginalised counties.
Roba, who is the chairperson of Frontier Counties Development Council said the failure to release the equalisation fund to the county was unacceptable.
The Treasury is holding Sh12 billion which should have been released to marginalised counties.
In a statement to the press on Friday, the governor said the Commission of Revenue Allocation (CRA) revenue sharing formula does not favour the disadvantaged communities and reinforces policies that promote inequalities.
Treasury officials did not respond to our calls for a comment.
Roba said those against devolution are clawing back the gains made especially by counties in northern Kenya that had been marginalised by successive regimes for decades.
“What we are witnessing are bureaucrats sitting in Nairobi and making decisions that are badly affecting us.”
The governor accused CRA officials of singing partisan tunes.
“After 50 years of deliberate successive marginalisation by regimes of Jomo Kenyatta, Daniel Moi, Mwai Kibaki there was glimmer of hope that devolution would guarantee socio-economic development in the ASAL counties,”he said
The governor said the funds belong to the counties as required by law which is to be used to bring them at par in terms of development with the rest of Kenya.
