By Dominic Odipo

Probably the most preposterous local news item I saw last week was in the Friday edition of The Standard under the headline: “Former PCs get new roles as Regional Commissioners.”

The item said that the former provincial commissioners, now renamed regional commissioners, will henceforth be “in charge” of the provinces they used to oversee but will now be based in Nairobi.

It added that, according to government sources, this was part of the process of restructuring the Provincial Administration to conform to requirements of the new Constitution.

If you remember, as we trust you do, all of our former provinces were effectively abolished by the new Constitution, which we formally promulgated on August 27, 2010. In other words, from that date, all the eight provinces which we used to have (Nairobi, Central, Eastern, Coast, North Eastern, Rift Valley, Nyanza and Western) ceased to exist administratively.

So, to start from the beginning, how can any person be appointed to be in charge of an entity, which, under the Constitution, does not exist?

Secondly, does the new administration’s decision to relocate all the former provincial commissioners to Nairobi effectively amount to restructuring the provincial administration or retaining it? In this era of Skype, e-mail, Facebook and cell phone, does it really matter where a provincial or regional commissioner’s office is located if the holder of that office remains substantively in charge of the area he or she used to lord over under the old dispensation?

Have the governors and senators from all 47 counties actually recognised just how dangerous this development could be to both the fact and spirit of devolved government? Have they really captured the fact that there are now some men and women “in charge” of their counties who will be pulling the strings from Upper Hill in Nairobi but whom they had no hand in appointing?

Hidden catch

Have these governors and senators internalised the emerging reality that there will soon be some men and women sitting in Nairobi, paid by the national government, reporting to that government and “in charge” of their counties but whom they never saw at the last general elections and who obviously did not receive a single vote from any of the 47 counties?

If you happen to be familiar with these matters, your eyebrows will have automatically risen when you first heard that, under the new dispensation, there would be a new ministry or national Cabinet portfolio for Devolution and Planning.

A ministry for Devolution? What on Earth would such a ministry be doing just when we are beginning to devolve government from Nairobi to the grassroots? Was there a catch here somewhere?

Those eyebrows will have risen a notch higher when you later learned that this Ministry of Devolution was going to be one of the most generously funded of all the national Cabinet portfolios. Why was so much money being pumped into the Ministry of Devolution, you must have wondered? But now, the word is slowly getting out.

And that word appears to be that the provincial administration is being retained, period. It is not just being restructured; it is being retained. True, a few titles here and there will be changed and the offices moved from this to that other place, but the heart of the provincial administration is apparently being retained.

If you look at the emerging facts, and those already on the ground, (the chief is still in his old office) this is the inevitable conclusion that you will reach.

Ireland, the home of some of the world’s greatest wordsmiths, has over the centuries spewed out some very powerful sayings. Among these is one that goes roughly like this: There are more ways of killing a cat than choking it with butter.

Indeed there are, even though many of our compatriots who live in Mombasa, particularly Ganjoni, might differ on this one. You could, for example, viciously kick it down the stairs even though you might not yourself live to tell the tale.

It would appear that there are some in powerful positions within the new dispensation who are very familiar with some of these old Irish sayings. They know that there are more ways of killing devolution than chocking it with milk from Elgeyo/Marakwet County.

You can, for example, place seasoned experts and practitioners in a cosy office in Nairobi, pay them very generously since the Devolution docket is already very generously funded and then detail them with only one agenda item: Make sure that real devolution does not fly.

Told-you-so

When we wrote in this column about what sort of people we needed to elect as our first governors, we did not pander to the ruling conventional wisdom. We made it very clear that what we needed were political governors, not technocrats, as conventional wisdom seemed to be at the time.

Now the balance of this argument is becoming clearer by the day. It is the Isaac Rutos and the William Kabogos who will stand up when devolved government is openly or clandestinely threatened as the new government now appears to be doing.

Not those other types, as the old Irish can still tell you today, free of charge.

The writer is a lecturer and consultant in Nairobi.

dominicodipo@yahoo.co.uk