To Ruto: Kenyans voted for devolution, not revolution

By Moses Kuria

Bomet Governor Isaac Ruto is not your pick choice of an enemy. The man is articulate and quite intelligent. Above all he is very persuasive. The Chairman of the Council of Governors is also an experienced politician, quite networked within the political class. This combination of talents can be lethal, especially when you add two spices into the mix, namely, when the opponent is not a politician and secondly when the nuclear war-head that is the sum total of Mr Rutto’s talents is not delivered through a missile of honesty.

In the ensuing debate on devolution, it is an unfair contest to pitch Mr Rutto against such technocrats as National Treasury Principal Secretary Kamau Thugge or his devolution counterpart John Konchellah. Rutto’s arms-in-trade is politics and propaganda. The technocrats rely solely on facts, data and the law. It is a duel between Victor Wanyama and Collins Injera. Herein lies the challenge of our new constitutional dispensation. To expect the best and most polished of our professionals such as Information Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiangi to compete on an equal footing with Raila Odinga before a rented, imported crowd and within the sombre mood of a mass funeral service. In such a contest, the first casualty is the truth.

The national government finds itself in an unenviable catch-22 position on the issue of devolution. The Constitution, through Schedule 4, provides that 14 functions ought to be transferred to the counties within a period of three years. Mark that, three years! A section of the governors led by Mr Rutto want that to happen within 24 hours. The Government has two options: Transfer all functions overnight regardless of whether the counties are ready to receive these functions or not and you are accused of frustrating devolution by collapsing the counties through a crash programme.

Transfer the functions in a phased manner and you are accused of frustrating devolution by starving the governors of cash and concentrating economic power to the centre. It would appear that the Jubilee Government opted for the former. Rather than risk being branded as anti-devolution, why not collapse a process that should take three years into a congested three-month window of transferring the 14 functions? I am of the considered view that it was a bad decision. There was no empirical evidence to prove that this crash programme would appease the Opposition. It is not about devolution. As Americans would say, it is about revolution! Of the 14 functions, 11 have been transferred to the counties. Transfer here is not in the mere sense of sending a memo saying that the functions are hereby devolved, it comes with real hard cash to carry out the functions. The other three functions were initially transferred and subsequently recalled. These are the payroll, roads and rural electrification functions. This recall came about after a spirited campaign by Charles Nyachae’s Commission of Implementation of the Constitution (CIC).

CIC was of the considered view that the counties did have neither the wherewithal nor the capacity to handle the three functions. This may, or may not be the case. But considering that 11 out of the 14 functions have already been transferred, and further considering that the Constitution provides for three years to complete the transfer process, is it not wise to withhold the three functions to allow for further negotiations and a verifiable audit of the preparedness status?  I am not suggesting in any way that the counties do not deserve to have the three functions transferred. I am neither discounting the governors’ opinion that some bureaucrats in Nairobi would want to continue lording over these funds.

 My question is: Why are we in a lunatic express sort of mad rush to transfer overnight what the framers of the Constitution, in their wisdom, provided for a three-year window for an orderly and non-disruptive transfer?

The national government opines that the counties are not ready to handle the payroll function. They do not have the requisite ICT and business process capabilities to handle such. Some cadres like nurses have also rejected flatly to be paid by the governors some of whom do not even have their Public Service Boards in place. Most governors I have talked to concur with that, but they appear no to have updated Isaac Rutto accordingly. Once you discern them, they appear to amount to what lawyer George Oraro would call a distinction without a difference.