I am just about to finish my third year as a governor, and I am convinced beyond doubt that devolution was a very good thing that happened to Kenyans. It is therefore worth strengthening and tuning as we review the constitution to make it much better.
In order to translate our proposals into the constitutional and legal framework, we need to take care of certain housekeeping issues, which provide us with false and/or opaque lenses when we are scrutinising and appraising our seven or so years of experience with devolution.
First, is the blame game. Yes, devolution has had problems. But looking at individuals to blame for these problems will not help us. A common theme has been a general condemnation of governors as the problem. Word on the street is that all governors are corrupt.
I have been the chairman of the Senate Public Accounts and Investments Committee and I know that the majority of governors do their best under difficult circumstances. It is the causes of these difficult circumstances that we need to look into while also making sure that governors remain faithful to the leadership code of conduct enshrined in our Constitution.
Second, is the derogatory attitude that some people hold against members of the county assemblies in general. It is assumed that MCAs have no mission to fulfil as representatives of the people except “looking after their stomachs.” Again, my experience as a governor has shown that we have some MCAs who perform their duties diligently.
But they work under difficult conditions where constituents expect them to play a greater role in society rather than concentrating on legislation and oversight. However, I have no sympathy for those MCAs who cling to political patrons, performing roles for which they were never elected and wallowing in self aggrandisement.
It distorts and undermines the role of political representation if representatives are also regarded as patrons to finance weddings, funerals and school fees, among others.
MCAs’ salaries are not meant to cater for such expenses. They will therefore look up to the next “patron”, the governor. And if the governor does not respond positively, impeachment is likely to be on the cards.
This money-based political culture grew under the Nyayo era and we must be brave enough to confront it and change it under the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI).
Let us do away with Harambee and institute more accountable social protection and development programmes that do not put undue financial pressure on our leaders, tempting them to engage in corrupt practices.
The current harambee culture and the politics of patronage affect almost every institution, Parliament included. But since devolution is new and people expect much from it, what happens here becomes even more pronounced.
After going through a period when the leadership of the Kisumu County Assembly was weakened by divisive politics, I have now seen an assembly that means business. I have also encountered such assemblies within the Lake Region Economic Bloc. In a more democratic political culture that will confine “Harambee” to the dustbin of history, our representatives will have a more conducive environment to perform their duty honourably.
VOTER BRIBERY
The need to nurture good and responsible leadership at the county level is the result of a debilitating electoral system where electability is based on money and voter bribery. Leaders get elected based on their deep pockets, which they must replenish once elected. This is the root cause of corruption, creating an evil chain throughout the political system.
If the BBI is to achieve anything positive at the national and county levels, it must break this chain by creating institutions and processes of identifying, fielding and electing leaders minus the money factor. If this is not done, the old saying “the more things change the more they stay the same” will hold. The ball is in the court of political parties in this regard.
Schedule Four of our Constitution divides functions between the national and county governments. The constitution also sets up the office of the Controller of Budget and that of the Commission on Revenue Allocation. These offices are aware of Schedule Four and know that in allocating resources to both levels of government, resources should follow functions. This hardly happens.
The recent piloting of universal health coverage (UHC) in four counties, including Kisumu, taught me a very important lesson: even when it is obvious to the national government that counties can only perform certain functions efficiently through timely funding, disbursement of resources from Nairobi is never guaranteed. It should therefore be no surprise that counties drown in pending bills and poor service delivery.
Of course there are failures on the part of the county governments when rent seeking undermines service delivery, the public expecting to receive services they are reluctant to pay for and local administrators fail to give proper attention to their work.
We have a lot of work in tuning devolution even without changing an iota in the Constitution. One thing that is certain is that the Division of Revenue Bill needs to allocate 45 to 55 per cent of the budget goes to counties.
To justify this, certain functions, services and institutions currently duplicated by the two levels of governments must be streamlined, particularly in the area of roads and regional development authorities. Here is why.
I have just come from an African Development Forum in Dakar Senegal focusing on urbanisation in Africa. Let me remind you that within the next 20 to 30 years, over 50 per cent of Africans will live in urban areas.
At the forum, a Polish professor, who is also the mayor of a city, gave an informative and eye-opening presentation regarding the development of Poland since 1990. Realising that Poland decayed economically and politically during the communist era, the new leadership decided to modernise society, relying heavily on devolved government.
Therefore, 55 per cent of the national budget went to devolved units as the nerve centres for economic growth given the endowment of each devolved unit.
Looking at Poland today, and her contribution to the GDP of the European Union, one will appreciate how devolution can lead to a country’s rapid economic growth.
The country’s GDP per capita is even more amazing. Poles are ten times better off today than they were 30 years ago. This has happened in my lifetime and I note how little we have gained following the struggle for the “second liberation” of Kenya for which some of us paid dearly.
The trouble with us in Kenya is that we are increasingly running a narrative where devolution is regarded as a problem and not an opportunity for igniting rapid economic growth.
If Kitui Governor Charity Ngilu can establish a textile factory, employing 500 people, in two years, what can stop us in Kisumu from reviving cotton growing and Kisumu Cotton Mills this coming year?
Makueni Governor Kivutha Kibwana blazed the trail with value addition in mango farming. Kakamega Governor Wycliffe Oparanya and I have been working with a team to revive the sugar industry.
We submitted our report to the President which he fully embraced. With such good intention, what stops us from privatising the sugar industry with farmer-friendly regulations this coming year?
Governor Francis Kimemia has his potatoes initiative in Nyandarua, which will lead to tremendous value addition.
SELF SERVING
At a time when devolution is raring to go, the BBI should midwife it creatively and banish the debilitating negative narrative that naysayers are wont to wallow in for self serving reasons.
In the final analysis, it is not the mission of the government to do business.
Governments are there to create opportunities for private sector players, from the mama mboga to the captains of industry, to do business.
But our counties are full of tenderpreneurs, people who believe getting a tender to build a road is their only lifeline even when they have never even done a footpath in the village.
Some get tender documents only to sell them to the companies of the same civil servants who award the tenders.
It is no wonder therefore that certain services are so poorly delivered in counties and then covered up by the same civil servants.
These are some of the evils that governors have to deal with. The good news is that county residents are increasingly becoming alert and engaging in public awareness to smoke out such tendencies.
All, therefore, is not lost in the counties. Siku zijazo ni za ugatuzi.
Prof Nyong’o is the governor of Kisumu County.
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