Ruto hosts governors at State House, pushes for agricultural reforms

President William Ruto on Wednesday held a meeting with governors at State House, Nairobi, amid efforts to review the progress of key intergovernmental development projects.

Ruto on his X (formerly Twitter) said his Kenya Kwanza administration will continue consulting frequently with the devolved units with an aim of fostering a harmonious working relationship.

He said the two levels of government have agreed to embark on an ambitious digitisation programme of public health facilities across the country to weed out fake hospitals that have for long unfairly benefited from public funds.

With regards to deepening agricultural reforms, the head of State said the two levels of government will harmonise and consolidate operations of agencies and departments under the Ministry of Agriculture.

This, Ruto said, will include the enhancement of animal traceability by registering livestock farmers and introducing the e-voucher system for animal vaccination, as they successfully did with the distribution of subsidised fertiliser.

“We will leverage our robust cooperative ecosystem to unlock the full potential in the agriculture sector, increase productivity, improve prices, and put more money in farmers' pockets,” said Ruto.

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While addressing issues of delayed payments, the president assured the county chiefs of the government’s commitment to the timely disbursement of funds.

Ruto argued that the timely disbursement of these funds will be a fulfilment of his pledge to support devolution and enhance service delivery at the grassroots level.

The meeting comes a few weeks after the governors, through their council, accused President Ruto’s administration of waging a covert war against devolution.

The Governors said steep budget cuts and delayed disbursements are designed to strangle the county governments financially.

The county chiefs threatened to halt county services countrywide unless the National Treasury reverses its decision to divert Sh38 billion from their allocations.

This standoff has reignited tensions between Kenya’s national and county governments, raising fears that the devolution framework, a hard-won achievement of the 2010 Constitution, is under threat.

Last year, the National Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi absolved his office of any delays and even provided a breakdown of how much money had been released to the counties since the beginning of the 2024/25 financial year.

Mbadi stated that as of November 18, 2024, when Sh30.83 billion was released, the National Treasury owed counties no debt regarding disbursements.