Is there someone planning to kill devolution a second time?

In September 2012, this column suggested that efforts were abroad to kill devolution in Kenya. Yet we had not even given life to devolution. There were widespread calls, at the time, to abolish the Senate. Some people wanted the Senate removed from the Constitution even before the elections in March 2013, that gave it life the following year. And indeed, last year at the division of revenue, the National Assembly, the Attorney General’s Office and the Presidency ignored the role of the Senate in the process. Add to this the fact that the three authorities – without any consideration of the Senate whatsoever – have since made 23 laws that touch on devolution, and the fears begin coming back. Is devolution in trouble?

I wrote in 2012, “ . . . There have been ominous suggestions by some Members of the National Assembly that we should amend the Constitution to abolish the Senate, even before we give it life. But most telling have been intermittent pronouncements from The Treasury that the country might not find the revenue to run county governments. While the counties are expected to generate income of their own as in the old days, the original oxygen must come from the national government. Could this be where the trap to kill devolution is lying in wait?”