President right to transfer Budget functions

This week the President transferred the budget office from the Treasury to the Office of the President (OP). This was a much-needed change in the management of the country’s finances. The fact of the matter is that Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich had proved unable to hold the line against runaway spending (and leakage) in various state departments. Shifting the budget office to the OP will bring political heft in the management of state finances. And is likely to streamline the cash flow management system in government.

That we needed such a reorganisation of the government is a sign that having an apolitical “technocratic” Cabinet may not have been such a good idea after all.

This, in and of itself, may not be a bad thing. Implementing the new Constitution was always going to be a learning process. And the one thing we have learned over the last three years is that it takes a lot to get things done in Kenya as a CS. And most of the time having political influence makes a difference.

For good reason, the drafters of the Constitution wanted to separate the Executive from the Legislative branch. The President can no longer use Cabinet appointments as a means of buying political support within the legislature. This is a good thing. For sure, the Muturi-Duale Parliament is yet to fully utilise its independence. But in the long run the country will benefit from the de facto separation of powers.

However, the stipulation that the Cabinet should be composed of non-politicians was a step too far – a reflection of our obsession with trying to legislate away our problems. This idea of the Cabinet ignores one of the core functions of the institution: to set and direct policy within their given portfolios. Directing the implementation of policy requires political power. First, CSs need to be able to advise the President without fear. The nature of our political system and its attendant political culture is that the more politically secure the CS, the more likely they are to have their voices heard within the presidency.

Second, the CSs need to hold their own in the face of lobbying from all manner of political quarters – including from Members of Parliament and their political godfathers. Again, in order to be able to do so, CSs need to have some political power. In short, this is one of the surest ways of being able to get things done.

This is not to say that we do not need technocrats. We do need technocrats, but at the right level of the ministries. There is no reason why we should not continue to empower Principal Secretaries in the ministries to be able to do their job in conjunction with the Head of Civil Service in the Office of the President. That way we can free CSs to do what they do best – serve the political purposes behind their appointments.

Instead of burying our heads in the sand and pretending that we can have technocratic CSs it is time we acknowledge that these are political creatures mainly appointed for political effect.

As such, we should restrict their influence on the actual quotidian operations of state departments. Principal Secretaries should run the show.

Which brings me back to the Treasury. The cash flow fiasco of the last month was a serious fumble that put the country’s reputation on the line.

It revealed that the head of the Treasury, Mr Rotich, was simply unable to keep his fellow CSs and their department heads in check. Shifting this function to the OP may help in this regard.