A decade ago in 2010 we ushered in a new Constitution. Kenyans were jubilant that the new dispensation had formalised devolution, a system of governance that had been elusive since independence.
An attempt to introduce it in 2005 backfired when the country overwhelmingly voted against the proposed Wako Draft because it was felt the draft did not address fundamental issues raised by stakeholders during the Bomas constitutional review process.
Article 1(4) of the Constitution says that people exercise their sovereign power at the national and the county level. Article 6(1) divides the territory of Kenya into the counties specified in the First Schedule. The governments at the national and county levels are distinct and inter-dependent. Yet, they conduct their mutual relations based on consultation and cooperation (Article 6:2).
Article 186 makes clarifications on functions and powers of county governments. It shows where county functions are situated (Fourth Schedule) and explains about concurrent functions. It also designates any other function not assigned to the counties by the Constitution, or any other written law, as a national government function.
Exclusive functions are functions that fall under either the national government or the county governments respectively. Each level of government is assigned its own functions which it should perform without interfering with the functions of the other arm of government, hence the exclusivity.
From the very onset, devolution was intended to bring essential services closer to the people and ensure public participation in governance processes. This has been made possible by the transfer of functions to the county governments and consequent resource allocation to implement those functions.
Today, the devolved units continue to meet some of the expectations of ordinary Kenyans whose conditions and quality of life still demand for attention.
Whilst devolution has partly succeeded in addressing the issues of inequality in resource allocation and service delivery, it is yet to fully realise uneven growth and development which was perpetrated for many years by the centralised system of governance. It is worth noting that a lot of resources are still administered by the national government to the chagrin of ordinary Kenyans.
An article published by Cambridge University press in 2016 captures it so well: “In Kenya the demands for devolution have been associated historically with ethnic minorities and other marginalised groups. National development under a patrimonial state bypassed such groups because they were numerically too small to count as vote baskets. Mobilisation of numerically large groups for electoral competition meant that those large groups and regions received exclusive benefits such as increased allocation of development resources."
It adds that "the first attempt to introduce devolution, regional governments, or majimbo—a Swahili term for 'regions' (singular, jimbo)—was in the early 1960s, immediately after independence. The pressure for a devolved form of government came from the numerically smaller communities organized around the political party KADU (Kenya African Democratic Union). Fearing that large groups would dominate them and their land after independence, they supported a regional form of government to avoid the dominance of these groups.”
And so since 2013 devolution has been a remarkable journey full of ups and downs, there are strikingly notable gains that have been realised in our counties. To begin with, many services have been brought closer to the people. As opposed to the past, Kenyans are not only focused on the national government but also on the leadership of their various counties for service delivery.
We have witnessed many of our counties make huge strides in modernising key infrastructure like health facilities, access roads and markets. The fact is a majority of Kenyans feel that they have not fully benefitted from the devolved units which were billed as the panacea to the many years of exclusion and marginalisation of some of the regions in the country. Is it devolution that has failed or the problem lies in the leadership?
There have been several cases of corruption and maleficence involving county government officials and their stooges. Nepotism is rampant and there are allegations that employment opportunities at the county level are dished out not on merit but to those who can oil the palms of county government officials.
Even with visible improvements on infrastructure in health in some counties, it is still regrettable that many county hospitals are lacking essential medicine, there are no enough doctors and health workers constantly go on strike demanding for pay.
There are scenarios where county governments, especially at the onset of devolution, lacked the capacity, knowledge and resources to effectively deliver the devolution dividend of shared prosperity, enhanced delivery of vital services and improved management of public resources.
The setbacks in devolution have been a blight on the progress Kenyans thought would have been made by now. It is, therefore, important that we make devolution work for the benefit of all Kenyans.
To make it work we must eliminate all the artificial roadblocks and allow devolution wheel to roll freely. Key to achieving this is the election of leaders of integrity to the county leadership positions. In the absence of good leadership, devolution will continue to benefit a few individuals at the expense of Kenyans.
MDG party leader and Ugenya MP
