Governor Oparanya: Devolution is working

Kakamega Governor Wycliffe Oparanya explains how his healthcare has benefited over 39,000 women in the county and now targeting 60,000 women at a budget of Sh200 million. [Photo: Duncan Ocholla/Standard]

The Council of Governors (CoG) chairman and Kakamega Governor Wycliffe Oparanya has described devolution as a success story, citing “improved healthcare” across all the 47 counties.

In an interview with The Standard ahead of today’s devolution conference in Kirinyaga County, Oparanya said erratic cash flow from the National Treasury and a bloated workforce inherited from the defunct local authorities, are some of the major challenges facing the devolved units

 Q: As chair of Council of Governors how do you rate devolution six years since its inception?

Oparanya: If you went out there in the counties, you will find that healthcare has really improved in terms of human resource. More doctors, nurses and clinical officers have been employed; more dispensaries, health centres and level four hospitals have been put up.

In Kakamega, we are building a level six hospital. If you go to these hospitals you will see there are equipped through initiatives by the county governments with support from the national government.

If you look at the education sector, Early Childhood Development centres which did not have infrastructure now have, and the children can now learn in a good environment. Counties have also hired more ECD teachers. More people who can now access tapped water than before. We have also increased food production.

 Q: You have cited healthcare as one of the success stories of devolution, but we have seen more strikes by nurses and there is already a discussion about whether to return the service to the national government.

 Oparanya: You cannot use nurses’ strike as an excuse to return healthcare to the national government. These strikes came with the new constitution. It is the same constitution that created the devolved units that also brought in the issues of human rights and nurses can now go on strike as it is provided for in the law.

You cannot say strikes are there because the counties have failed. Furthermore there are also strikes in units run by the national government. Anyone will tell you healthcare has improved under devolution.

Q: What are some of the policy issues governors are pushing for in ensuring devolution achieves its intended purpose?

Oparanya: The most critical thing is the flow of funds from the National Treasury so that we can be able to meet our commitment and end the issue of pending bills as a result of erratic cash flow.

We also have several pieces of legislation, particularly in the health sector that threatens to claw back the gains made in devolution. We need to look at them so that we are able to engage the Senate for amendments.

We also want to anchor the COG into law properly. It is mentioned in the governmental Act but we want it anchored so that it is taken as a national government institution.

We want to ensure that devolution is strengthened and we are hopeful that in case of a referendum, the funds to counties will be increased from 15 per cent to 45 per cent.

 Q: On the clamour for a referendum; there is a push from certain quarters to cut the number of counties from the current 47. What is your take?

Oparanya: We have formed a committee under Governors Kiraitu Murungi and Kivutha Kibwana. That committee is to look into how we are going to be part of this debate on the referendum. When they come up with proposals I can be in a position to state our stand on the matter.

 Q: The first term of governors was characterised by rows between governors and senators. Has the working relationship between governors and senators changed?

Oparanya: In the first term I can tell you that senators never understood their work at all. I think some of them when they were going for the seat thinking it was a much superior position to that of a governor, but they realised that was not the case. After they realised the roles were distinct. they started interfering with the running of the counties. At the moment I am happy that they understand their roles very well. We now have positive engagements.

 Q: There was also fights between governors and their deputies?

 Oparanya: Some deputies also did not understand their roles. Their roles are very clear in the law. They are principal assistants; meaning your principal assigns you responsibilities when he deems fit. But you see some of them wanted specific functions. You also realise that from those who contested against their bosses in the last poll, not all of them succeeded. Recently, I told them to cooperate and assist their governors to achieve their goals.

 Q: How do you compare your second term with the first one in terms of structure and operations?

Oparanya: I find my second term much easier because in the first term I spent a lot of time putting up structures in place. I spent much of my time in the office, but now I spend much of my time in the field, see what is happening, engaging locals. I have administrators that can give me information quickly. County assembly members now understand our responsibilities and have a good working relationship.

The handshake between President Uhuru Kenyatta and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga has reduced unnecessary opposition at the grassroots level. It has made our work much easier.

Q: Counties have been accused of spending all their allocations and revenues on recurrent expenditure as well as being turned into employment bureaus?

 Oparanya: The law is very clear that you can only spend 35 per cent of your budget allocation on salaries. But we have problems that we inherited from former local authorities. The local authority staff were highly paid and we took so many of them. Depending on the size of the counties you’ll find that we exceed that particular provision.

Counties were allowed to correct that scenario in three years. But you see we started ECD centres which were not there.

This means we have to hire ECD teachers. Secondly, counties have to put administrative structures where you have sub-county administrators, ward administrators, village administrators.

These are in law and must be in place. So this has been a challenge. In fact, there was an exercise by the national government through Devolution Ministry to rationalize staff. This would require money from the national government for retrenchment.