I have been a supporter of devolution since the advent of the system in 2010.
But we are at a point we must squarely look into the mirror and accept that what is reflected there is not what the framers of the public finance chapter on the 2010 constitution had hoped to achieve.
Today; what you find in reports in successive reports by oversight authorities; including the Office of the Auditor General; the Office of Controller of Budget; and the Ethics and Anti Corruption Commission (EACC) are catalogues of mounting chronicles of corruption within the county government system. Even the strongest supporters of devolution are converting into cynics.
We do not regard the rising number of governors facing corruption investigations as a reflection of in-built failures in the system and are quick to sloganise and wave away this perennial phenomenon as motivated by weaponisation of the anti corruption agenda by the incumbent political elites.
Still; we look into the mirror and accept that what we are seeing doesn’t look good Of course; we have major credibility issues with the whole of our anti corruption framework.
An effective and credible anti- corruption regime can only be feasible where you have strong checks on its ability to be used to for political ends. Without doubt; the county government system has delivered solid achievements in many areas- rural health services; basic education and rural roads.
But on balance; devolution has been so distorted that an appeal to its positive achievements sounds hollow.
What you read from successive reports of the Auditor General is a regime in which public financial management standards have dwindled badly; public procurement laws and regulations are neither followed nor respected; and where internal audit systems are in a shambles.
We need to agree that we are at a point where we must now subject the County government system to unsparing criticism in order to draw the lessons. Clearly; the system at it is today is totally dysfunctional. Part of the problem is that systems; structures and institutions that were introduced by the framers of the public finance chapter of the constitution have not been allowed to take root.
The framers said that 15 percent of national revenues was to go to county governments.
To date; there is no agreement on the year of audited national revenues to applied in calculating the 15 percent of national revenues figure.
Then there is also the fact that main pillar of the centralised public finance architecture of yore; namely; the National Treasury; is still hanging on the powers of disbursing funds to the County governments.
In retrospect; the framers of the constitution did not envisage a situation where County government would be bargaining with the civil service bureaucracy at the centre over how much and when money was to be disbursed to the devolved government.
Today; the bureaucrats sitting at the centre make sure that funds meant for Counties for discretionary expenditure are kept at the minimum. The framers conceived of the National Treasury as a technocratic bureaucracy whose role would be to implement decisions made elsewhere by independent constitutional bodies.
We created the Commissioner of Revenue Allocations (CRA) as a constitutional body mandated to determine the formular for sharing revenues between the Central Government and the Counties. This constitutional body was also given powers to define; determine; and enhance revenue sources for both the County and National Government.
Today; the recommendations and determinations on the revenue formular by CRA are honoured more in breach than in practice. The reality is that the National Treasury even has powers to undo the allocations decided by parliament in the middle of the financial year through the so-called supplementary budget process.
Currently; we are in the middle of the season of the haggling between the National Assembly and the Senate of revenue allocations. The Senate- that interprets its role in the revenue sharing process to be that of a fiscal advocate and campaigner for the Counties- want a figure of Sh465 billion while the National Assembly wants the revenue share for Counties at Sh405 billion.
Yet the truth of the matter is that this haggling process is but an academic exercise because at the end of the day; the National Treasury retains the powers over exchequer releases. If you are in doubt with what I say; grab a copy of the Statement of Actual Revenues and Net Exchequer Issues that is published by the National Treasury every month in the Kenya Gazette.
The latest issue which is for the month of April 2025; has just come out. You will find the original budget estimate for Counties in the current financial year was Sh4001.1 billion. How much of this has been released? Only Sh199 billion. And; we are only two months away to the end of the financial year.
The writer is a former Managing Editor for The EastAfrican.
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