GOOD ADVICE IF YOU ASK ME

Mr Julius Kipng’etich, Equity Bank’s chief operating officer, told the governors they would have to take the difficult route of having some civil servants shown the door because they were not prepared for devolution. “Leadership is about having willing followers. The reality you have on the ground is that you have no followers,” said Mr Kipng’etich, a former head of the Kenya Wildlife Service, credited with putting it in the right track. “You need to negotiate for a massive reorganisation of the public service. If you don’t do that, you will not be re-elected. The public service wasn’t prepared for devolution. I know them. Some of them might have swallowed you already,” he said. He told the county chiefs at the on-going Governors’ Summit in Naivasha that, without workers who knew what their agenda was, they would have a dismal record at the end of their terms. After the reorganisation, he said, the governors would then pick staff they could work with and the rest would have to leave.