Governors must be accountable to get more cash

The recurring clamour for more money by counties has become a political song with serious ramifications. Nearly every other day, including the recent stand-off, the country has been treated to theatrics as Council of Governors demand more funding. The national government does not seem prepared to allocate more funds to county governments without adequate accountability. County governments claim the monies allocated to them are below expectations for their operations.

Many county governments are facing problems with payment of salaries and other commitments. We have also witnessed serious problems engendered by the bad relationships between MCAs and the Executive as is the case in Taita Taveta County at the moment. The problems appear many and have affected service delivery significantly in nearly all counties. The clamour for more money is a national problem, a disaster indeed! It is also coming from parliamentarians. This issue needs attention and must be addressed expeditiously so that Wanjiku can enjoy improved service delivery. After all that is one reason why we came up with a new Constitution in 2010.

The modus operandi had to be changed to bring about better management of resources. The current problems seem to point out poor governance practices at all levels of government but appear more pronounced at the county level. One of the biggest concerns not addressed by county governments as they ask for more money is what they have done with the amounts already allocated to them. Accountability has been poor.

There is alleged corruption, misuse of funds through poorly organised benchmarking trips by MCAs, poor public procurement, decreasing revenue collection, fees and charges, and failure to institute proper citizens’ participation in the budgeting process. There are many other problems.

Until these problems are addressed at the county level more money will not solve their problems. County governments need to enhance downward accountability and upward accountability. There is already a record from audits and these have exposed county governments that have done poorly in terms of revenue and expenditure management.

The national government argues that it cannot afford to allocate more money to counties. It is clear that the government is asking fundamental questions to the governors that may perhaps explain why it is not keen to give more. The questions relate to accountability of funds and to issues such as inadequate absorptive capacity. Embracing these questions and the issues engendered thereof is the issue of governance that must be improved.

Generally speaking when one takes the cumulative revenue figures of what Local Authorities in a given District (County) used to collect in taxes, fees and charges, a notable feature is that much less revenue is collected today.

We have read stories of traders in almost every county refusing to pay taxes under all manner of excuses. It is a well-known fact that some governors have not been keen to enforce revenue collection for fear of reprisals come the next elections. MCAs have the same fears. Yet we cannot go on this way something needs to be done urgently. It is a fact that African countries and Kenya in particular suffer from poor governance. Since the 2010 Constitution there have been improvements in the economy but more remains to be done and especially in county governments.

The stories from Taita Taveta and other counties do show something is amiss in terms of revenue and how it is shared even at the county level. The Integrated Financial Management System (IFMIS) was implemented in the defunct Local Authorities under the Kenya Local Government Reform Programme to provide an integrated system for managing revenues, expenditures, to facilitate the budget process, report generation and to support statutory accounting operations and procurement management especially stores inventory control.

It is now implemented in county governments albeit poorly. But IFMIS is compatible with various accounting systems and so its application has not been the key problem.

It has simply been abused and misused. Once a good number of employees has been trained on IFMS essentials then it will become easier to bring about improvements and reduce abuses of the system.

- Prof Lewa is the outgoing Dean, Chandaria School of Business, USIU-Africa and consulting professor of Management and Strategy