Stalled projects in counties paint grim picture of devolution

Ben Muhevi had tried his hand at fishing before but did not get the results he anticipated. The fish were stunted and the few sales he made to his friends and neighbours barely covered the expenses he incurred in constructing his fish pond.

It was not until a Ministry of Agriculture extension officer informed him that he had a better chance of making money with indigenous rather than hybrid fingerlings and he separated the sexes that he began to see the value in fish farming.

It also turned out that Mr Muhevi had not constructed a proper fish pond and had to build a new one from scratch to carry out proper commercial fish farming.

 FISH POND

Together with 33 other fish farmers in Nangili, Kakamega County, Muhevi sought help in setting up a commercial fish pond that would help him earn a living.

“We got someone from the ministry who instructed us on the dimensions of the fish pond, and that we were supposed to pour in a bag of white cement and a week later, one bag of DAP fertiliser. Once we had done this, the pond was ready to be inhabited,” he said.

Each of the farmers was to pay Sh5,000 for a bag of 1,000 fingerlings together with the cost of constructing the fish pond, with another Sh40,000 needed for fish feed over a period of six months. Muhevi and his colleagues soon found themselves in over their heads.

When Business Beat asked Muhevi if he knew that Kakamega County had set aside Sh100 million in the last financial year for a fish pond programme to benefit his group and others like them across the county, he said that was the first he was hearing of it.

Neither he nor his 33 fellow fish farmers from his small group had heard of or been accorded any assistance from the county for the more than three dozen fishponds they are struggling to run.

Muhevi is just one of millions of county residents in the country who are slowly losing their hope in the system of devolution, which will be celebrating its second anniversary in Kenya in two months’ time.

The Ministry of Devolution and Planning last year named Kakamega the country’s poorest county in its Socio-Economic Atlas of Kenya report, which used data from the 2009 Kenya Population and Housing Census.

One in two of Kakamega’s 1.6 million residents lives below the poverty line, with the county contributing 4.8 per cent to national poverty.

In the 2013/2014 financial year, Kakamega County was the third-largest recipient of funds released from the central government to the 47 counties, banking Sh6.8 billion.

 LOCAL REVENUE

The county administration budgeted for Sh9.6 billion for this last financial year, expecting to raise 30 per cent of this, or Sh2.8 billion, from local revenue.

However, the county administration barely managed to collect a 10th of this amount from local sources, taking in only Sh325 million, which means the county budget was almost entirely funded by central government transfers.

The county had an ambitious agenda, with Sh5 billion in the 2013/2014 financial year set aside for development projects. However, it was only able to spend Sh1 billion of this, representing the lowest absorption figures from the 47 counties that financial year.

County financial committees from the 47 counties are now drafting budgetary proposals for the 2015/2016 financial year. But even as they do so and prepare to ask for more allocations from the central government, few of them managed to see through the projects and development plans they detailed in their 2013/2014 budgets.

Audit reports from the Controller of Budget on development expenditure indicate that the new administrative units have done little as regards implementing the grassroots development agenda.

The Annual County Budget Implementation Review Report from the Office of the Controller of Budget indicates that for every Sh5 allocated for county development in the 2013/2014 financial year, Sh4 was not spent.

This means that development projects like schools, hospitals, markets and roads in these counties have either stalled or are yet to begin, putting in jeopardy the entire devolution process.

For Moses Shaha, the current county system of government is not much different from what was there before, saying he believes the Constitution just created a new layer of bureaucracy and inefficiency.

Born and raised in Kilifi County, Mr Shaha was hired at the now defunct Kilifi Cashew Nut Factory in 1975 shortly after his 17th birthday.

Starting off as an apprentice at the then Italian-run factory, he worked his way up the ranks over two decades to serve as production supervisor until the collapse of the factory.

“In those days, there was a common saying in the village that if an Italian trains you and you do not get good at the job, then you should just give up and go home,” he said with a chuckle.

Shaha added that at its peak, the firm had the capacity to process 60 tonnes of cashew nuts a day.

“You could tell whenever farmers had just been paid because there was a boom in the area, and from markets to brothels, people were spending money.” 

Joint report

It has been two decades since the factory ground to a halt, and Shaha together with other farmers and residents of Kilifi had hoped that after four elections and numerous promises, the county system might just be the saviour they had been waiting for.

The Government ranks Kilifi the sixth poorest county, with six in 10 residents living below the poverty line.

Further, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Government in a joint report found that Kilifi district registers one of the worst prevalences of child labour in Kenya, ranging from commercial sexual exploitation, domestic labour, selling illicit brews, farm labour, quarrying, fishing, hawking, touting and exploitation for entertainment.

In the 2013/2014 financial year, Kilifi County had an expenditure plan of Sh4 billion, which was 78 per cent of the funds released to it.

The county spent Sh3.6 billion (89 per cent) on recurrent activities, and just Sh426 million (11 per cent) on development.

Further analysis of the county budget shows that for every Sh1 spent on development, Sh4 was spent on salaries.

“The leadership we have at the county system has not changed anything and we are still where we were 20 years ago when the factory was closed,” said Shaha.

Shaha is currently the chairman of the Eastern and Southern Africa Small Scale Farmers’ Forum (ESAFF), a pan-African organisation that helps smallholder farmers network and push for policy and resource aid.

“After the factory collapsed and we realised that we are on our own, I started ESAFF to help smallholders get access to information, resources and markets,” he said.

Today, ESAFF is present in 12 African countries.

“At some point, we realised that it had become pointless to wait for a Government official or councillor to come help you set up a market or irrigate your land and we did it ourselves.”

Philip Baya is one of the youth representatives at the bottom of a long chain of county leaders in Bamburi, Mombasa County.

We caught up with him after a long day mobilising youth for a clean-up exercise being co-ordinated by the county government.

“My work entails keeping in touch with the youth representative who lets me know if he has any jobs available or projects that can give young people some temporary employment,” he said.

“I also collect views and requests from young people in the area and forward these to the county youth representative, who in turn forwards them to the county assembly.” 

Revenue-sharing formula

Less than five kilometres away lies the Masjid Swafaa Mosque that was raided by the anti-terrorism police unit two months earlier and temporarily shut down.

During the raid, which was part of a crackdown on mosques that were believed to be radicalising youth in Mombasa town, the police said they had recovered hand-made petrol bombs and a hand grenade among other crude weapons.

The mosque was later re-opened and new clerics put in place, but Muslim faithful have since stopped attending prayers at the mosque and moved to others nearby.

Mr Baya appreciates that while the issue of radicalisation and religion at the Coast is complex and deep rooted, county governments can provide part of the solution to the problem.

“There are a lot of things that the youth can do if given the right incentives, and the county government has dropped the ball as regards giving young people a more active role in the new administrative units,” he said.

“The situation is dire and we have so many young people who are in need of employment, but instead idle at homes or on street corners.”

On its part, the central government is divided on the performance of county governments and the process of executing their development expenditure.

According to the offices of the Auditor General and Controller of Budget, the performance of county governments so far indicates patterns of inappropriate allocation, undue focus on personnel emoluments and little focus on development.

The Commission on Revenue Allocation (CRA), which was formed to facilitate the equitable sharing of taxpayers’ money between the central and county governments, has developed a new proposal for revenue sharing that it hopes will iron out some of the teething problems being faced in the devolution process.

According to Commissioner Rose Osoro, it is too early to judge county governments and label them failures.

“The issue of capacity to absorb funds cuts across both the central and county governments, and given the fact that county governments have been in place for less than two years, it would be judging them too harshly by stating that they are not properly absorbing development funds,” she said.

“County governments are new and they spent a big part of their first year setting up systems of procurement and I think we should start judging their performance from their second budget onwards.”

The CRA’s proposed revenue-sharing formula contains several new parameters that are aimed at facilitating more targeted development spend in the counties.

“We have introduced the development parameter, which is premised on the understanding that revenue allocation should be more specific to the development needs of each county,” said Ms Osoro.

Currently, CRA uses a poverty parameter, which basically ranks counties along a poverty index and shares revenue according to poverty levels in each county.

This has, however, been found inadequate as it gives less regard to the kinds of poverty present in specific counties and the presence of resources.

“The development parameter looks at infrastructure, provision of water services, education, and so on, and the aim is to have it replace the poverty parameter in time,” said Osoro.

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