While a lot may have happened in 2024, Kirinyaga Governor Anne Waiguru says that remarkable strides were made in various aspects of governance.
In an end of the year interview with the Star, Waiguru urged all Kenyans to build on the gains of 2024 to make the next year (2025) a much better year.
The Governor urged all to remain hopeful as we walk into 2025.
What is the most fulfilling part about this year?
My most fulfilling part of the journey this year, one was I was named political trailblazer in an award organized by some independent media houses, and for me, that was very encouraging. The other highlight was the launch of the G7 strategy, which is a strategy that we are looking to expand the space for women leadership in the country, both at the gubernatorial level and all the other levels, and the success that it has been.
We have managed to go around the various counties where women governors are elected, five of them now, and two counties remain, and in those we've been able to showcase the work that women governors are doing. Hopefully, by that, encourage more women Governor candidates to come up, and also encourage the public to consider women leadership.
The Constitution talks about the two thirds gender rule, but in the elective space, we've not been able to achieve that both at the National Assembly level and also at the Gubernatorial level, with the governors only having at this point in time, seven women governors and out of 47.
We're still far behind the two-thirds, and we're hoping that this strategy will get us to move the numbers from G7 to G24. We're working hard to ensure that that happens and this has been another highlight for me, and then also having completed my term successfully at the Council of Governors as chair, and having been re-elected for a second time, and having achieved a lot, including an increase in the total resources for county governments. We've increased production in agriculture from across our counties.
We have increased development across most of the counties, you can see there was a difference in terms of delivery, and also improved the relationship between the national government and county governments during that time and that has also been a major highlight for me.
What has been your lowest point in for 2024?
At county level, my lowest moment was when we lost 17 people in Kirinyaga from illicit brew. That was a sad moment for us, and we have made quite a number of interventions with regard to the management of the sale of alcohol in the county. This tragedy was a low moment for not, not just for me, but for the people of Kirinyaga. Apart from the people we lost, we had other people who ended up blind and families who were affected.
At the national level, the Gen Z riots, the loss of lives around that was quite a low moment for me. The fact that we even got to a place in the country where parliament was invaded, that was low as a leader.
It was one of those moments that we sat back and needed to reflect on where we are going as a country. It was not a very encouraging time.
What do you make of that Gen Z uprising?
The issue of the uprising by the young people, of course, makes us reflect and see what lessons we can learn. But I would want to say that it's not unique to Kenya. If you look across the world, there seems to be an agitation by young people, especially with the political class.
I looked at Europe, we just had Prime Minister resign after two months in office. You look at countries like Georgia, where just a decision postponing the country joining the European Union to three years causes there to be such serious uprising in that country.
In Africa as well, we have seen the same in various countries and I wouldn't say it's unique to Kenya, but what we're saying is that provides us with a moment to really think and listen, and especially when you consider, like in this country, our mean age is 19. Majority of the people over 70% are below the age of 35 and you cannot ignore that voice. You have to listen.
The lesson is that maybe we need to make some adjustments in the way we engage, in the way we communicate, especially on policy.
We're also living in a season and time where information moves very fast, and a lot of the times, even false information and misinformation will move just as fast. So, adjusting to those realities and improving our communication, especially in how we communicate government policy, explaining why we have certain interventions and for what, and waiting until we have carried majority of the people with us would be a lot a lesson that we can learn.
Public participation, making that really a reality, where, when the public participates and gives their views, they see they're being considered, even if you don't adjust your policies completely to accommodate exactly what they're asking for, they see that you have actually listened, you know, and that you have explained why maybe we cannot make the adjustments as you would want, and the reason why we would have to continue in a certain trajectory or with certain policies, and if they saw that, and also the questions that they keep raising around good governance and prioritization of projects and policies.
Explaining that a little bit better, is the lesson for me that I've taken this year, that it's important that people are engaged especially the public, being mostly young people who are very versatile in communication, but you engage them adequately.
Delay in Disbursement of funds has been one of the headaches that counties have been facing. Has this been a challenge in 2024? how has that affected your county? And what are some of the ways that you propose they should be handled?
With regards to disbursements, there was a time we're doing very well in this year, that is 2024 in the beginning of the year. Before the end of the financial year in June, we did very well and then at some point we slowed down, especially around that time when we had the challenges that we had as a country, and mostly because of the money that comes to the counties is dependent on the national government collection of revenue. If the national collection of revenue is delayed, you would expect then that there would be delayed disbursement.
This year, for example, we got our late disbursement for June in this financial year around, nearly in August, and then after that, again, we had a lull and the money for July and August was late, and that affects counties in the sense that they depend month on month on these resources, you have to pay salaries.
For example, you have to pay our healthcare is devolved, you have to pay for our medical human resource capacity, and when you delay, it affects service delivery. Similarly, if you don't pay your agriculture extension officers on time, what happens is that also they go a bit slow because people don't have either resources to fuel their vehicles or to move around to come to the office. It also affects morale, which also affects performance and productivity at the county level.
Delayed disbursements have been a hindrance. Now we have gotten money up to November, which is not bad, but the money for October and November almost came two weeks apart, which is a good thing, and therefore we are able to pay salaries for December, which is which is good. We hope that they maintain that and money for December comes before this month is out, and then money for January comes on time and that way, then we'll be able to improve on service delivery at the county level.
Should some functions be reverted back to the national government?
I actually don't think that there are any devolved functions that need to revert to the national government. The reason being, there is a reason why we got here in the first place as a country.
Kenyans said that service delivery needs to come closer to them, and they asked for devolution. We should be focusing more on improving on how those services are delivered, as opposed to facing a small challenge and then deciding that it is time to take back those functions, to the national government.
Having said that, there are some departments at the national government level that still cling to the functions that should be at the county level, you will find that there are some functions in health, for example, that the Ministry of Health will still be insisting on carrying out, yet they should be efficiently carried out at the county level and if they think that the counties are not placed to do it, they should build the capacity, because that is the role that the national government is given in the constitution to build the capacity of counties in agriculture as well.
We've had numerous engagements, even between the national government and the Council of Governors, and at Summit level, at IBEC, where these functions we've discussed many times, and finally, we have seen the gazettement of the functions. Now we are looking forward to the resources following those functions, and then the national government building the capacity of counties to actually carry out the functions.
One of the things that people don't seem to understand and realize, and maybe by the time we realize it will be a bit late, is that you cannot grow the economy with a centralized system. The only way to grow this country and have economic growth, real economic growth that is felt by the people is by devolution and decentralization of resources and making other centers of development away from the center, you know.
Until we have vibrant counties, until we have that vibrancy of the economies at the lower level, we can never achieve the economic growth that we keep talking about. And even if you achieve it in numbers, in terms of statistics, where you're told by KNBS, you've grown by this number, people will not feel it because people in this country are in the counties.
And it's my persuasion as an individual that the only way to grow a country is by decentralization and I’m giving you an example of what former president Kibaki did when he was in power and after the 2007 and we regressed in our economic growth to below 0%. We carried out an economic stimulus program that was largely driven at the Treasury and I had the privilege and honor to be head of that unit at the time, and they managed to turn around the economy, just by decentralizing functions and making sure that there are activities happening across the entire country. At that time, we were using the constituencies as a base of decentralization, and the economy grew to up to 7.8% which was remarkable turnaround. The only way that this country can grow sustainably and have that impact felt by the mwananchi is by effective devolution, or decentralization of resources.
Why is this 2/3 gender question really a headache for this country? Why are we not achieving this?
From where I sit, history is what determines where we are. One, we are generally a very patriarchal society. When our views are beginning to change, and they are changing, because there are certain women and leaders.
I would want to believe they've been one of them, and the seven governors and other elected women leaders, that they are being seen as capable leaders, and then therefore the society and our culture will start embracing the change that women can't play this role of leadership, because generally, you will find that many societies would think that there are certain functions or jobs that should be done by male counterparts, and then they assign certain functions to the women.
For example, in the electoral space, you'll find they will say, when people are campaigning, that the seat for the women is the one for the Women County, MP, (Woman Rep) and then they would say, the governor, you give it to the male. I had to actually swim against that when I was campaigning in 2017 so it's just that mentality and the view of where women are at. But I must say that we're making strides.
They're not as good as we would want, but having moved from zero women governors to three and then now to seven, is a step in the right direction, and we're hoping next time we will go to 24.
It's a huge, ambitious target, but, you know, we say, if you shoot for the stars, you will land somewhere closer. We hope that at least between 16 and 24 women will get in the next cycle, and we're also hoping that we encourage more women leaders to come out.
If you look at the number of women who run for office, they're not that many compared to the number of men and there are barriers to women's entry in politics. For example, one of them is resources, which is a huge hindrance for women. It's very easy for men to say they are going to take a loan on their home and go and run for office.
It will be very difficult for a woman to say that they are going to borrow some money on their home to go and run for office because also of the issue of ownership. You will find, even up to this time, we still have challenges in women owning property. Even matrimonial property is usually registered, for example, because they are restricted.
The other thing is that women have certain rules and functions in their homes, and running for political office brings certain challenges in the balance between work and life balance. If you're a woman and you have young kids, for example, it's very difficult in politics because, for example, you're representing a constituency in Kirinyaga and you have young children who are in Nairobi and maybe your spouse is in Nairobi, that juggling and committing will be difficult.
Now, imagine if you are representing a constituency in Wajir or a constituency in Homa Bay. It becomes a very huge challenge on the work life balance, and sometimes that hinders women from entering so they delay their ambitions, as opposed to men, they can run at whatever time and still manage because certain responsibilities that usually are given to women at the domestic level, sometimes, they're more demanding where the family is concerned. But society is changing slowly, and support structures are changing, and we are seeing that if that continues, then we should be able to have a more equal, level playing field to encourage more women to get into political office.
Tell us about the G7 strategy?
In the implementation of the G7 strategy, what we are doing is; one, showcasing that women can lead, and that they can lead well, and they can perform in their functions and that's why we go county, to county.
If you see us in when we visit counties, we go and see projects, we talk to people, we engage communities so that we hear what it is that they are saying, and they hear us, and they see women leaders, and you can see then where women are already elected as governors, their acceptability, even of retaining those women as leaders, is there.
We're hoping that with that also, we will encourage women who want to run for other offices, whether it is in the County Assembly level or National Assembly level and we have seen many women joining and they're encouraged, and hopefully this time around, we will have a lot more women candidates.
The other thing is, we are very encouraged that the two largest parties, largest party being UDA, the second largest being ODM, both of them have chairpersons who are women And again, very encouraged that those women are governors, so that should be able to also encourage more women to come up and say, if Governor Wanga can do that, I can. If Governor Cecily can do that, I can, I can. And that encouragement, even seeing them seated there in the political parties will encourage women to align, and hopefully will end up having a lot more women being elected in the next cycle of elections.
Are you running for presidency in 2027?
I hear that question pretty often, and I will say that at this point in time, we have three years to elections and my focus is to complete the work that I have started in Kirinyaga and to also work in supporting the government to ensure they deliver on the promises that we made when we were being elected. So, that is my focus in the next two years. Towards the end of 2026, we will know what political direction we will take.
You were considered for Deputy President?
I am very honored that I was considered as a contender by Kenyans. I think it's not something that you can take for granted. It is humbling to say. The call to service is a high calling that comes with great responsibilities and right now, what I would say is that we have a deputy president in place, and there is no vacancy and so the issue of considering at this point in time doesn't arise.
However, in future, we will see how the political scene plays out, where the country goes, where our regions go, and then we will determine the best way to proceed.
The most fulfilling thing about leadership?
In public service, the most rewarding thing is anytime that I have started an initiative and it’s completed and launched and serving people and seeing the reaction of people is extremely rewarding. When I was in cabinet, the launch for the Huduma Centers, for me, was a great thing in the sense that we conceptualized the changing and delivery of public service to Kenyans, and were able to bring over 4,050, services under one roof, saving Kenyans a lot of time, and the reaction from Kenyans on that has been extremely rewarding.
The second thing is, for me, at Kirinyaga level, I have watched it in agriculture. I have watched it also in healthcare. But the one that has really, really touched me is the opening of our level five hospital. Kirinyaga never had an ICU, never had a HDU.
Our hospital was old and dilapidated, and I had the vision to transform Kirinyaga Central, to be our wellness city. And we started with in the vision, in the blueprint, saying that this will be our vision, and we'll start by building a level five Hospital, which we have done, an ultra-modern one with county resources, completely built with over 350 bed capacity, four storeys up and got our ICU and HDU there, and we're now building the capacity of our medics and increasing the number of doctors to be able to serve in that capacity.
When I hear the feedback from Kirinyaga people, it's really encouraging, not just as a landmark, but also on the services that they receive. We serve 600 outpatient people every day, and the hospital is running at almost full capacity. We are now in the process of upgrading three level three hospitals, which we hope to finish by in 2025.
They are at an advanced stage so that we can remove the pressure from the level five, because now of the ultra-modern facility, everybody wants to go to that hospital from every corner of the county. Similarly, in agriculture, when our interventions have borne fruit, whether it's in increasing rice production, in the coffee sector. We are almost becoming the second coffee producing County and if you look at how small we are, you'll be amazed that we are able to do that.
We are leading in the country, those initiatives and what we've done in the dairy sector and the increase in the incomes for farmers, being tangible and seeing it and hearing from the people has been highlights of my service.
What would you like to be remembered for?
I would want to be remembered as a leader who worked and was committed to public service delivery, and who set out to make the lives of our people better than I found them. That is how I want to be remembered. I campaigned on “Kazi iongee” slogan and even now I tell people I don't speak that much.
I'm usually not in the public that much, but the work speaks for itself. They can tell that I am working. They can see that what we set out to do is actually happening. So, that is what I would want to be remembered.
I would want them to look at the level five hospital, and remember that I dignified the lives of Kirinyaga people by providing them with good medical facilities. I have built 18 markets with county resources and again, dignified the place where our people do business.
They used to be selling on the streets in small, little makeshift shacks, but now we have modern facilities with good bathrooms and water service and also providing a clean environment, that dignified where they do their business when they bring their farm produce to the market. That also has been very instrumental for me in terms of wanting to be remembered as someone who dignified the lives of Kirinyaga people.
We are a rural community mostly, we focus on agriculture and for us, once we produce in the farms, we take our produce to markets. So for us, markets is a very big issue, and we also end up supplying many of the towns around us, including Nairobi. So that is how I'd want to be remembered as somebody who was committed to public service, made a difference tangible difference, that can be seen even after I have gone, and also having dignified, the lives of the people that I serve and leaving them better than I found them.
Parting shot
Let me take this opportunity first to wish every Kenyan, the Kirinyaga people, and every Kenyan at large, a very merry Christmas and a very happy new year. My message is that let's remain hopeful. let's remain optimistic. 2024 had its challenges, but let us be optimistic and have our hope in God that it 2025, we all do our best, wherever it is that we are that it shall be a better year than 2024.
