Devolution heroes and villains

Financial impropriety
Aside from impeachment, governors have inherited financial challenges. A joint report by the International Budget Partnership, which recommends issues that counties need to address in 2014/15, begins by saying, “Counties faced a number of challenges in budgeting this year due to a compressed time schedule, inadequate support from national government, and limited capacity.”

Because general elections were held in March 2013 and not August 2012, as the constitution envisaged, the government only dispersed 27% of devolved funds by end November. This meant that for the first eight months of their term, counties did not have access to any money and could not institute any projects.

The remainder of funds ought to have been disbursed by January but they were not, which has meant funds earmarked for county development are still sitting with the Treasury. Dr Washington predicts these funds will not be rolled over to the new financial year because of the shortfall in revenue collection in the financial year 2013/14.

This difficulty has been exacerbated in a number of counties by the failure to appoint accounting officers, the equivalent of principal secretaries.

“Nearly half of the counties have not appointed all chief officers. Bungoma had their entire list rejected the other day. And these are the things no one is talking about. They’re not in the national discourse but these are the realities of government,” said Dr Washington.

Kwame Owino, Chief Executive Officer at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA-Kenya) confirmed they had received requests from a number of counties to guide them on budgeting, strategy and technical issues in general but that they were not working with any at the moment.

He added the IEA would, in July, begin engaging with 10 counties under a World Bank project to “assess budget transparency and see how to disburse critical budget documents”.

The Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya (ICPAK) has also received funding from the World Bank to entrench financial reporting and budgetary monitoring in counties.

The unfriendly structure of the country’s procurement laws has also tied the hands of governors and forced them to follow a cumbersome 90-day open tender procedure, which has thrust every governor, including Alfred Mutua, into the limelight for contravening procurement laws and procedures, hence the investigations by EACC.

Possibly the greatest hurdle they have inherited is a large budget deficit, which may see their 2014/15 budgets being cut in favour of national objectives.

Jason Lakin, senior programme officer at International Budget Partnership, said that when national policies reduce the funds available for sharing with counties, Parliament must question whether government is doing enough to contain its debt and ensure sufficient funding for other functions.

These and other challenges – such as the power struggles between the Senate, gubernatorial, national and county assembly – have deeply exacerbated the work of county governors.

But despite this, it seems the merits of a devolved form of government are not to be sacrificed and in April a major conference is to be held entitled ‘One Year into Devolution, Celebrating the Milestones, Confronting the Challenges’.

An achievement that is already being praised is the increased attention paid to government spending by ordinary people, media, and analysts.