Listen to This Article Enhance your reading experience by listening to this article.

It is regrettable that counties have been struggling to meet their financial obligations since December because they have not been receiving their allocation of sharable revenue from the national government.

Whereas it is understandable that the current administration has been going through teething problems that have strained its resources, it is still unfair to cut off counties’ funds, first without consultation, and second, without outlining a clear path showing how the national government would make this money available.

Worse still, it is telling that governors had to use threats to get the national government to make a commitment and the public only expects that the schedule the Cabinet Secretary for Treasury has given will be honoured. Too bad that the breakthrough had to come after governors threatened to shut down county operations.

Now that there appears to be light at the end of the tunnel, it is important that the two levels of government engage in more backroom negotiations to resolve their differences or to find solutions to their common problems. True, there will always be friction between the two levels of governments — which at the end of the day are beneficial to the public — but this is not to mean that the relevant arms cannot reach out to each other and stop matters from getting out of hand and spilling over to the public arena.

Governance is a delicate art. It involves an intricate system of give and take and both parties must learn early to make concessions before their differences play out in the open.

Parliament and the Senate appear to have embraced this consultative approach and it appears to work for them because Bills presented in either House enjoy support from the other. This is not to mean that there are no instances will they not see eye-to-eye. Importantly, it is that they are working on a formula that is mutually beneficial. This is what governors and the Executive leadership need to learn and emulate.

That said, counties must wean themselves of the high dependency syndrome. There is need for them to find ways to raise sizeable revenue from their own resources so that they do not overly rely on allocations from the national government. This is what has killed many institutions, including parastatals and universities. Governors must not fall into this trap. They need to find ways to raise revenues to tide them over during periods of delayed disbursement from the national government.