Where the rain started beating devolution

By Ndung’u Wainaina

Lawyers held a national conference to debate devolved system of governance. While there are legal grey areas, the real elephant is political policy choice stratagem. Do you have political will to ensure existing legal order and institutional framework of Government accords to the principles, structures and objects of devolution?

Building viable devolved, democratic governance must be rooted in functioning local, participatory, self-governance institutions. The Grand Coalition Government was not the national Government contemplated in the Constitution.  Articles 1(4), 6 and section 17 of the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution provide the compass for restructuring national Government administration and governance structures.

County Governments were to be ushered vide a General Election. Since an election had not been held, the devolved system of governance never existed. Therefore, the purported restructuring of national administration structures by Grand Coalition to ACCORD WITH and RESPECT devolved system of governance was premature and suspect.

The restructuring timeframe of governance structures contemplated in the Constitution is five years. Therefore, the hasty illegal appointments (without policy and legal framework) were a strategy to either pre-empt or undermine the establishment of an effective democratic devolved system of governance.

This can be demonstrated in the suspicious midnight enactment of the National Government Coordination Act that giving the national Government control and ownership of the assets (but not liabilities) previously under the old governance structures.

The Senate should urgently draft and enact a cogent national sessional policy strategy consistent with the Constitution, underlying the framework for the country’s new development and governance system. Governors and County Governments are not an appendage of the National Executive.

They are products of the Constitution. Governors exercise sovereign will of the people (Article 1(4)) and executive authority. They play critical roles of Chief Executive and Legislator respectively of the County, manage and oversee county executive bureaucracy, provide public policy direction, and act as interGovernmental liaison representing and embodying the county.

A Governor is the focal point for internal and external engagement of the county, crisis manager and guarantor of safety and security of county residents.

Three factors are necessary for effective and successful implementation of devolved system of governance: an effective control of: resources (human and financial), administration and political authority, and development priorities for quality service deliveries. Greater levels of each of these are expected to be positively associated with substantial county Government performance, with the latter including internal operations and delivery of services appropriate for local needs. All the three factors together with a viable county political dialogue process must have effective accountability mechanisms such as a strong civil society, media and county oversight institutions. 

The current problems facing implementation of devolution are rooted in specific policy choices and strategies pursued by national Government. The operating policy of the national Government on devolution is deconcentration not devolution. Constitutionally, it is the opposite.

For effective and successful implementation of the devolved system of governance, county Government must have effective control of resources and personnel; administration and institutional authority; and development priorities for quality service deliveries.

With all this in mind, it is reasonable to conclude that effective county governance requires real devolution and exercise of control of resources and personnel, political and administrative authority, and development of a viable local political processes and robust accountability mechanisms by county Governments.