Beware pitfalls of counties politicising employment

Kenya: Nandi County governor Cleophas Lagat’s brave decision to go against elders from his community and follow the Constitution deserves commendation.

Mr Lagat is reported to have reminded the powerful Nandi Council of Elders that the Constitution demanded that 70 per cent of jobs should go to the indigenous community while 30 per cent is taken up by professionals from other regions to maintain a national outlook.

One of the greatest challenges facing the devolution of services to the county level is the dearth of qualified and experienced individuals at the county level because many Kenyans who leave the universities rarely return home after graduation. Instead, many do whatever it takes to get jobs in Nairobi or — to a lesser extent — in Mombasa.

Indeed, many employees often view a transfer to work outside Nairobi as a measure designed to deny them opportunities for career growth. This is not peculiar to Kenya or to government service. Ambitious employees of multinational companies usually resist plans to send them to work in subsidiary companies located in far-flung corners of the world.

The only way county governments can hope to get qualified staff is to cast their nets wide — certainly outside their geographic area. The fact that counties do not have the luxury of using salaries and other personal emoluments as bait makes their job that much harder.

It follows, therefore, that counties that attempt to get staff with the expertise required from a small pool of professionals drawn locally will fail and could end up filling key positions with unqualified people.

That might not only do great harm to the counties’ ability to manage the increasingly large amounts of money devolved from the National Treasury but could also send negative signals to prospective investors from outside the county and country.

The politicisation of the employment process could also keep away the truly qualified local people out of a well-founded fear of job insecurity as they might be subjected to a revolving-door-policy whereby a new governor comes and goes with the key public servants.