Devolution dilemma as confusion reigns over public service delivery

Chairman of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya Benson Okundi (left) and Government Accountant General Benard Ndung'u adresses the Media at the Sarova whitesands beach in Mombasa last month. [PHOTO: MAARUFU MOHAMED/STANDARD]

Nairobi; Kenya:  All senior civil servants attached to the former ministries of Co-operatives, Health, Trade or the Livestock and Fisheries dockets are still retained by the national government. This is despite the fact that functions of these ministries have been devolved to the counties.

While Schedule 4 of the new Constitution took certain functions to the devolved units, all senior staff who were in former ministries have not followed these functions and are instead hiding under the collapsed ministries. This according to the Executive Director of International Centre for Policy and Conflict Ndung’u Wainana, has resulted in a crisis in service delivery as civil servants in the national government are still operating in the centralised policy system.

“The intention of cutting down the size of Government was to make it more efficient in service delivery to the tax payer. But only the number of ministries was reduced and the entire bureaucracy retained. What we have is a confused bunch of civil servants, who are too many and uncoordinated while doing condensed work,” said Kariithi Murimi, a strategy, constitutional and governance expert.

Own recruitment

It comes as no surprise that the names Cooperatives and Trade have disappeared from the Cabinet list. Incidentally, county governments have refused to absorb staff seconded from the national government and instead done their own recruitment.

Samuel Nyandemo, a senior economics lecturer at the University of Nairobi says governors declining to accept the seconded staff provided a leeway for them to hire their cronies and relatives.

The Constitution of Kenya allows a maximum of 22 ministries. This has meant that the Jubilee administration trims its size from the previous 44 in the former Kibaki Government to 18 Cabinet Secretaries.

This change in the structure of the Cabinet has meant that certain ministries in the previous administration have had to merge, dissolve or transform their status into directorates or agencies. For instance, Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries are now in one ministry under the Department of Agriculture, Department of Livestock and Department of Fisheries.

The previous powerful Ministry of Trade and Industry has been merged with Ministry of Foreign Affairs while the Ministry of State for Planning, National Development and Vision 2030 has been merged with that of Devolution. “We have a weak link between planning and budgeting with the two functions placed within Devolution and National Treasury respectively. This is a great mismatch, said Benson Ndung’u - Accountant General at the National Treasury.

He made these remarks while addressing a Public Finance Management (PFM) conference in Mombasa, organised by the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya (ICPAK).

New structure

In the new structure where co-operatives is a directorate under the Ministry of Industrialisation and Enterprise Development, it is still unclear who between the Cabinet Secretary, Commissioner General for Co-operative Development, the co-operative tribunal and the High court, has the final word on whether, how and when a co-operative society should be registered, placed under statutory management or dissolved.

This is because powers under sections of the Co-operative Societies Act (amended), 2004 from registration, inquiry and inspection and dissolution of any co-operative, are vested in the commissioner. This same powers and responsibilities can be snatched away by the cabinet secretary through the High Court. “A proposal by Mwalimu Sacco to acquire a stake in Equatorial Bank is purely a co-operative issue but we are yet to hear any statements made by the person in charge of this docket,” said Murimi.

Interestingly, the Transition Authority is yet to wind up and close the accounts that were run by the now defunct district treasuries. There are more than 278 such accounts that are still active with 3,000 staff managing these district treasuries.

“We have two parallel systems of national and county treasuries as well as district treasuries - which is a waste of public resources,” said Ndung’u. In the new arrangement, the former Ministry of Co-operatives Development and Marketing has been transformed into a directorate, under Adan Mohammed, Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for Industrialisation and Enterprise development.

Ministerial terms

“I am worried about the possible impact of removing the word “co-operatives” from the vocabulary of ministerial terms,” said Henry Bwisa, Professor of Entrepreneurship at Jomo Kenyatta University College of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT).

There are growing concerns that while the vibrant co-operative sector in Kenya has opened opportunities for international exchanges, trade, and collaboration, lack of a fully-fledged ministry would erode some of these benefits.

“The co-operative movement has achieved a lot during the times that it had a fully-fledged ministry. We have now lost bragging rights especially during international forums, where Kenya was one of the few countries with a co-operatives ministry. Perhaps we should think of changing the name of the Ministry of Industrialisation and Enterprise development to include the word co-operative,” said Joshua Ojall, the immediate former chief executive of Mwalimu Sacco.