The promulgation of the new constitution in 2010 has seen the annual wage bill go up by a significant margin. The salaries and re numeration commission has projected an increase of up to ksh. 650 billion by the end of 2018. This has been contributed to by increased number of political offices and office bearers that came with the constitution, which include the introduction of the following positions and institutions
1. Governor
2. Deputy governor
3. Senator
4. Woman representative
5. Member of County assembly
6. County governments
7. Senate and
8. County assemblies
I am deeply concerned by the over representation and the unnecessarily large numbers of the county governments which come with a huge bearing on the tax payer to facilitate the payment of their salaries and finance the operations in their offices. Apart from the increased taxation of the citizens, the high wage bill hinders the development of the country as well as subjects the government to take huge loans that still bears greatly on the tax payer.
I therefore recommend the amendments of some sections of the constitution that touch on representation and government structure;
1. Amendment of Chapter 11 part 4, article 188 section 1 and 2 to review county boundaries to create 8 counties from the current 47 based on population density, geographical coverage and the cost of administration.
2. Amendment of Chapter 8 to allow the elections of two members of parliament from each constituency, one to represent, legistlate and oversight at the National Assembly and another to represent, legistlate and oversight at the the county level in their respective counties as an alternative to the Members of the County Assemblies. The senate should be abolished and its roles taken up by the constituency representatives at the county.
With these amendments effected, the country's wage bill is expected to greatly come down since the county governments would have been reduced from 47 to 8, no senate and senators and expenses that come with their offices and staff, reduced number of county assembly members to 290 from 1450.
