Intrigues between national, county governments in Kenya slowed down devolution

NAIROBI: Transition Authority Chairman Kinuthia Wamwangi had a chat with The Standard on the challenges of his job. Here are the excerpts.

What were your expectations when you took the job of Transition Authority chairman?

My expectations were quite high and I was optimistic in terms of delivering a smooth transition to the new devolved system of government. I also expected a lot of teething problems given that we had not experienced a transition before. So I went into a retreat at the Catholic resurrection garden to seek Biblical guidance. God revealed to me that Joshua took over from Moses and delivered people into Caanan. This was one of the boldest transitional experience in the history of human kind and this where I derive my inspiration.

Describe in detail the major challenges you faced during the transition period?

One of the key challenges was the conflicting interests among the two levels of government pertaining to transfer of functions given that resources ‘follow function’ as one of the principles of devolution. We also had to work under a lot of pressure given the tight deadlines provided for under the Constitution of Kenya 2010 and the Transition to Devolved Government Act 2012 (TDGA). TA was established in June 2012 ,sworn in by the Chief Justice on July 3, 2012 and inducted in the week of August 21, 2012. We had exactly six months to do work anticipated in schedule 1 of the TDGA.

This required two years before the elections. TA was therefore late in coming by one and half years. All institutions including Parliament, summit, governors, and independent commissions have continued blaming TA for not carrying out its mandate before the new system came into place. But we could only do so much in six months. Besides, when we came into office, we found a budget of only Sh250 million which was just enough to meet our salary budget. However, we would like to commend Joseph Kinyua, the then PS for Finance who went out of his way to facilitate a budgetary provision of over 600 million in January.

This helped us to jump our impasse and to carry out programmatic work in the two months before the elections and the last quarter of that financial year (2012/13). He also made available to TA Sh3.2 billion special grant to facilitate allocation to office refurbishment, installation of the executive including the governors and installation of the county speakers including the swearing in of the MCAs.

In addition, Parliament passed our proposed County Public Finance Transition Act one week before it was dissolved.

This provided for Sh9 billion from which TA prepared budgets for the county authorities for the April –June 2013. We ensured that the counties did not suffer because they had a budget in place and an Act of Parliament to enable them raise local revenue for the next six months after the abolition of the Local Government Act.

From the Sh3.2 billion, we allocated each county Sh61.5 million to start construction of new offices, Sh2-5 million for refurbishment of offices for executive and assembly and Sh2 million each to the executive and assembly for the installation ceremonies. Finally we allocated Sh9 million to each county assembly for the installation of the Hansard .

Other challenges included:

i) Political intrigues at both the national and county levels.

ii) Low level of awareness of the transition process by the citizens

iii) Calls for disbandment of the Authority also slightly dampened the staff morale.

iv) Lack of legal mechanisms to deal with emerging issues relating to transition into a devolved system.

What would you say were the success stories and the most notable management or policy failures of TA during your tenure?

The first success story was the transformation of 175 local authorities into 47 county governments’ entities with complete structures, procedure manuals and staff establishments.

The second was a uniform, timely seamless installation of the county governments from ground zero.

The third was the successful induction of all the governors and speakers before installation into their officers.

Successfully initiating and facilitating analysis, unbundling and transfer of devolved functions to the county governments remains one of the most notable achievements.

Costing of functions and transfer of attendant resources to facilitate service delivery is another success story. We were also able to successfully prepare county profiles and initial transition budgets for the four months between March –June 2013.

Development of civic education curriculum and manuals which are now ready for launch and roll out is another success.

One policy failure is that we have not found consensus on an umbrella staff retirement benefit scheme. The parties have still not agreed on the ideal scheme for the officers. TA has also not established a consensus on classification of roads especially those pertaining to class D and E.

This matter has landed in court. Equally, TA has not achieved consensus on the betting casinos and other forms of gambling function. This is another matter that landed in court.

You have argued in the past that if Parliament approved audited reports by the Auditor General that guide the sharing of national revenue, counties would get higher allocations. Do you still stand by this premise? Why?

Yes. Because the national allocations of revenue to both levels depends on the outcomes of the last national audited accounts .The national revenue has tended to improve with time. It is therefore obvious that the proportionate amount will increase automatically.

One major challenge facing TA was the lack of an asset register and failure to cost functions before devolving them. How was this resolved?

TA was formed one and a half years late. In order to cover up for the lost time, TA entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the Auditor General to jointly carry out this exercise. TA is yet to carry out an audit, verification, survey and registration of the assets to constitute asset registers. TA still has to carry out the same exercise for the assets and liabilities for devolved functions and those of the national government.

This requires a lot of financial resources and we hope the Government will understand and provide the necessary resources.

You have said the costing of functions by the Treasury was based on “historical costing”, which disadvantaged some counties, while others benefited. Explain.

The historical costing by the Treasury only provided basic guidelines on allocation of scarce resources. Some allocations were sometimes influenced by circumstances other than scientific considerations. It is therefore TA’s belief that retention of that formula as the basis of modern allocation will continue to marginalise individuals and societies. That is why TA is undertaking realistic costing of functions based on international best practices.

Under your tenure, was TA able to conduct a proper costing exercise that can be considered realistic and devoid of historical costing?

Yes. The process is explained above.

Is devolution heading in the right direction and where do you see it in five, 10 years’ time?

Yes. Despite a myriad of challenges, I can authoritatively say that devolution is on track. We can say with certainty devolution is working.These trends are contributing to the attainment of Kenya Vision 2030.The trends will continue into the short, medium and long term growth of Kenya.

Finally, with your role at TA winding up, what will be you be doing moving forward?

I have now enrolled in a PHD programme with Jomo kenyatta University and therefore see myself mingling with Academia, writing books on devolution and providing high end consultancy on devolution. The family and the church have always been my primary tenets of existence. This has not changed because of this job and will not change because of future prospects.