By Stephen Makabila
Kenya: The take-off of devolved units is proving a hard nut to crack. With experiences of highlevel turbulence fuelled by multiple grievances by both the County Assembly Members and Governors, it remains to be seen when devolution will kick off smoothly.
From boycott of sessions in almost all the 47 County Assemblies over salary complaints, protests by Governors over under-funding by the central government, complaints of imbalance in formation of County Executive Committees and rows over nominations of County Assembly representatives that was only sorted out last week, the take-off of county governments has been a rough affair.
Power clashes between Governors and county commissioners and cries over poor infrastructures been put in place months to the March 4 General Election, the 47 county governments would take-off smoothly after election of governors, County Assembly representatives and appointment of members of County Executive Committees (CEC).
But with only a handful of functions transferred by TA to the counties amid ever growing challenges, the road ahead is not any rosy.
Even President Uhuru Kenyatta, who declared he was fully behind devolution, has seemingly realised things are amiss at the grassroots, compelling him last week to ask elected leaders to put interests of the electorate first.
“You should stop looking for money to put in your pockets and concentrate on serving Kenyans,” said President Uhuru last Thursday during Senator Mutula Kilonzo’s funeral.
Uhuru’s salvo was directed to Governors, members of the County Assemblies and the MPs, agitating for better pay at the expense of service delivery to wananchi.
“It’s a concern of many and it is good the President has also expressed his feelings over the same. It is upon Governors and elected leaders in counties to work towards a middle-ground in ensuring a smooth and sustainable devolution process,” notes lawyer Titus Bittok, a lecturer at Moi University.
‘Poor pay’
The President’s comments came a day after business was paralysed in County Assemblies across the country following members boycotting sittings to protest poor pay.
Members moved adjournment Motions in the 47 regional assemblies last Wednesday as the standoff over the new salaries set by the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) escalated.
Consideration of budgets for the various county governments and approval of nominees to executive committees are among key counties businesses disrupted by the protests.
To address the spiralling public sector wage bill, SRC published a new pay structure for State officers that saw members of County Assemblies earn a monthly salary of Sh79,200 and house, committal and sitting allowances.
But the members have rejected the new pay, saying it is too little and have consequently demanded the commission to review their perks upwards to at least Sh350,000.
In some assemblies, the protests disrupted scheduled swearing-in of nominated members who had joined late because of a court dispute.
Governors have also been up in arms accusing the Government of starving devolved units funds and re-directing the money to roll out Jubilee pre-election pledges.
National revenue
The Treasury has been accused of usurping the mandate of the Commission on Revenue Allocation (CRA) chaired by Micah Cheserem, which has under Article 216 of the Constitution been given the responsibility to develop the fairest formula to share national revenue among the counties.
Governors have argued the much-anticipated development in the 47 counties will not kick off this year, if they only receive money for recurrent expenditure.
According to the governors, the CRA had recommended an allocation of Sh231 billion in the 2012/2013 budget, which works out at 14.3 per cent. But the Treasury wanted to reduce it to Sh175 billion translating to 10.93 per cent of the current budget.
“This is not only unconstitutional but unacceptable and reduces devolved governments to mere agents for paying salaries with no development,” said Bomet Governor Isaac Ruto.
Bungoma governor Ken Lusaka notes that it beats logic to create devolved units and at the same time starve them of funding.
“Governors are complaining because they have genuine concerns, which have to be addressed.They do not make noise for the sake of it,” said Lusaka.
Fixing funding mess
But the Government has since moved to rectify the funding situation, though not to the satisfaction of the governors.
Deputy President William Ruto made some good efforts towards fixing the funding mess last week, after he convened a meeting to sort out the stalemate between the Treasury and CRA. He announced that county governments will get Sh210 billion up from an earlier figure of Sh198 billion.
Meeting deadline
But even as the funding problem is addressed, questions arise whether the county representatives are going to settle, approve their budgets, vet and approve members of the Country Executives Committees before the May 16 deadline.
Only Kisii, Kwale and Meru counties have a head-start in implementing their development agenda as cabinet appointees were formally gazetted on Friday.
The three counties will now officially get down to business of tackling some of the problems bedevilling their areas of jurisdiction ahead of other counties.
Counties’ deficits
Kisii county assembly held its session on April 23 where they officially approved governor James Ongwae’s 10 Executive Committee members who included four women.
The two other assemblies approved the list of their cabinet on April 30 after Governors Salim Mvurya (Kwale) and Peter Munya (Meru) respectively forwarded the names.
Given some counties have developed budgets with deficits and cannot even pay salaries for employees, their leadership requires sobriety as they seek ways of meeting the deficits. To achieve this, County Executive Committees have to be in place.
Among counties with deficit in their budgets is Mombasa. The county unveiled a Sh22.3 billion budget estimate for 2013/2014. Out of this, Sh13.9 billion — or 62.3 per cent of the budget is unfunded. Presenting the estimates, Mombasa Governor Ali Hassan Joho noted that he would be seeking loans from development banks and donors to fill the shortfall.
Financial difficulties
Nairobi County on its part unveiled a Sh31.5 billion budget with the hope of raising Sh14.6 billion from internal sources while Sh16.9 billion will be catered for by transfers from the National Treasury.
Owing to the financial difficulties facing most counties, some MPs want the national government to write off the 47 counties’ debts to help reduce their budgets deficit.
Nyali MP Hezron Awiti and his Kisauni counterpart Rashid Bedzimba have, for example, argued that there is need for the national government to settle the counties’ debts to save them from financial troubles since almost all the counties inherited huge debts, which were left by the defunct local authorities.
Devolution laws
The MPs further note that the counties might sink into more debts owing to huge deficits in their budget estimates.
One of the other remedies that may help put county governments on track is the realisation by the Senate that it has to salvage the devolution process.
The Senate plans to revise devolution laws passed by the 10th Parliament to seal glaring loopholes likely to derail implementation of devolved governments.
The 47 county governments are also to come under close scrutiny by the Senate, after the planned creation of the Counties Accounts Committee (CAC) and Counties Investment Committees (CIC) as additional committees of the house to play an oversight role.
Loopholes
Senate Majority leader, Tharaka-Nithi Senator Prof. Kithure Kindiki, notes: “The loopholes are many. We have to revise the laws to operationalise devolution and move forward.”
In an earlier interview with The Standard, Kindiki had revealed he intends to move a motion seeking to create CAC and CIC.
The two committees will monitor usage of funds allocated to counties by the national Treasury and investment within the 47 counties.
Kindiki has indicated both committees will be chaired by Senators from the CORD coalition.
