NAIROBI, KENYA: In the joint opening session of Parliament this week, the President reminded the nation that ‘power is exercised more transparently when it is closest to the people’ and lamented that ‘for too long, decision-making has been concentrated in the hands of a few in Nairobi’. And hence, devolution will be central to his Government’s vision for the country. That put paid to concerns that Uhuru’s Government will not allow power and resources to cascade down to the counties.
The statement also implies a commitment to respect the priorities of the county governments in charting their own course as they seek to create wealth and reduce poverty. If his Government lives by this statement, it also means that all future national policies and laws emanating from the national government must take on board the counties’ interests ab initio. And so the raft of laws the President proposed in his legislative agenda as well as the many policy proposals he outlined in his speech must be designed to complement and support devolution.
In addition to the role of Parliament in protecting the Constitution and promoting democratic governance in the country, the Senate’s primary responsibility is to ‘represent the counties’ and ‘serves to protect the interests’ of the counties and their governments. The Constitution also expressly gives it powers to legislate, and scrutinise and approve all Bills ‘concerning counties’. It also determines the national revenue allocation among counties and ‘exercises oversight’ over the same.
Nearly all the laws, national policies and sessional papers that will come to the National Assembly from the national government will touch on the counties. And so, the Senate may be compelled to interrogate such proposals through its committees in the exercise of its mandate. And the interplay of the respective county interests and priorities sets in, determining what the Senate will think on these proposals.
This serves to illustrate the need for the national government to design its national development blueprints carefully to assess not just the impact on the counties but also whether these programmes will blend in with the county government’s development blue prints. Nairobi has to feel the heartbeat of the counties before it hits the ground running. And it does so through the Senate, which protects the interests of the counties, which explains why the Senate as the Upper House will play a far greater role than is envisaged by some in the national government. As a start, the Senate will need to review all laws enacted in the recent months touching on the counties to ensure they facilitate the success of devolution and not serve as impediments. It will also be necessary for the Senate to define its relationship with the national government, the National Assembly as well the counties. The Constitution merely defines the roles of each of these institutions and their broader relationships, but does not outline their operational linkages.
One such legislation that will come under closer scrutiny is the Public Financial Management Act that gives the Treasury more powers to control finances at the county. Even as the counties work fast to build their operational capacity on the ground, there will be need to develop a regulatory environment that will not only facilitate faster uptake of the devolved resources, but also enhance transparency and accountability by the county regimes.
Indeed, the Transition Authority needs to take the cue from the President’s speech and move fast to review the bureaucratic hindrances at the Treasury to operationalise the counties.
