Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga has criticised President William Ruto’s Affordable Housing Programme, arguing that such a project should be managed by county governments.
The ODM leaders has also picked issue with the Constitution of Kenya (Amendment) Bill, 2025 that seeks to introduce the National Government Constituency Development Fund (NG-CDF), the Senate Oversight Fund (SOF), and the National Government Affirmative Action Fund (NGAAF).
Speaking at the funeral of Francis Ngaru, Odinga reiterated his support for devolution and the need to empower counties further.
He also demanded that the government keep off county roads, further calling for the abolishment of the Kenya Urban Rural Roads Authority (KURA) and the Kenya Rural Roads Authority (KeRRA).
“Parliament should not try to change the constitution because of narrow ends. The constitution that we brought here brought devolution; devolution needs to be defended,” Raila said.
He went on: “Today there’s a gazette notice they are (MPs) saying that they want to amend the constitution in order to legalise this NG-CDF. What does the national government have to do in the counties?”
Raila said counties have county governments with full executive powers to implement devolved functions and as such, the national government should let go of resources meant for counties as stipulated in the constitution.
“Health is devolved, provide the funds down there; roads are also devolved, you don’t need Kura and KeRRA. Have only KeNHA in the national government, deal with international highways, national trunk roads and feeder roads and leave the other roads in the regions to counties,” Raila said.
The opposition leader said the national government has no business building markets and affordable houses in counties while county governments have been enabled by the constitution to execute that mandate.
Odinga asked Kenyans to embrace unity and shun divisive ethnic-based politics and further went ahead and castigated those who branded him an enemy of the Kikuyu community as mistaken.