Auditors report says President Uhuru Kenyatta's ‘big bang’ messed counties

KENYA: President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto fomented a service-delivery crisis by transferring all functions that were handled at the national level to the counties, even before the counties were ready.

The interim report of the inaugural Socio-Economic Audit of the Constitution done by a government task force, accuses the two leaders of ignoring the law on the gradual transfer of power, functions and resources to the counties and adopting a "big-bang" approach.

"While there were some legitimate factors behind the adoption of the big bang approach, many county governments have had difficulty in marshalling capacity to operationalise their functions as provided in the Fourth Schedule," reads the report of the task force led by the Auditor General Edward Ouko.

The Jubilee leaders, together with governors, the report says, ignored the Transition Authority and ordered that every devolved function be taken over by the counties, yet at the time there were neither structures at the county level to handle the work nor money to deliver the devolved services.

"The low capacity of counties for public finance management, human resource management, county planning and budgeting, optimisation and realisation of own revenue bases have contributed to their slow uptake of functions," the report added.

The report also revealed that top government officials were frustrating the implementation of the country's four-year-old Constitution because of deep-seated hate for change. They are reluctant to implement some provisions because, to them, it means loss of power, influence and money.

The task-force also slammed the Jubilee administration, which dominates both Parliament and the National Executive, for clawing back the independence of the Judiciary.

The absence of a Judiciary Fund — to give the Judiciary fiscal autonomy — and the refusal by the Head of State to appoint judges nominated by the Judicial Service Commission for appointment are some of the pointers that the report says show "interference" in the independence of the Judiciary.

"A lack of clarity on the nature and extent of the role and powers of the Supreme Court and specialised courts has also been a challenge to overall judicial effectiveness," said the report.

The audit, commissioned by the National Assembly, also revealed runaway duplication of roles in the Provincial Administration, which ought to have been disbanded when the counties came into being two years ago.

"There has been no clarity or consistency in the restructuring of provincial structures and personnel in the line ministries," the report says.

The argument is that the provincial administration system "remains largely intact, with only change of names of the positions".

The chief and the assistant chief remain, provincial commissioners were renamed regional coordinators, a new office of County Commissioners was set up to head counties, District Commissioners became Deputy County Commissioners in respect of sub counties (districts or constituencies), while District Officers were renamed Assistant County Commissioners in respect of every ward.

"It is not contestable that the national government needs a presence to co-ordinate its functions at the county level. The question is what size of presence would be both effective and financially prudent."

It added: "In view of the efficient, effective and prudent use of resources principle, the co-operative government principle and the appreciation of interdependency of functions, it is necessary for both levels of government to design a structure or organisation that is best fit, but facilitative of respective functional mandates"

For the country to reap the fruits of the Constitution, then civil servants have to be rewired in their thinking, and measures put in place to gauge their performance, says the audit submitted to National Assembly's Budget and Appropriations Committee.

"Capacity building is required within the National Executive for it to support the new dispensation. This includes but is not limited to attitude change, skills training in line with the new government and development of instruments to track the transformation," it adds.