Move To Disband Transition Authority Will Harm Devolution By Henry Wanyama Monday, November 11, 2013 Devolution has brought a dawn of hope to majority of Kenyans with 40 per cent of the national resources being channeled to the 47 county governments. Teething problems, however, face the change to this new system of government. The Transition Authority is tasked with modifying the process and ensure success by March 2016. But TA chairman Kinuthia Wamwangi warns of far-reaching effects if the authority is disbanded as proposed by a draft Miscellaneous Amendment Bill 2013. He spoke to our writer Henry Wanyama. Please revisit the mandate of TA? The Transition Authority was established after the Transition to Devolved Government Act was enacted in 2012. The Transition Authority facilitates and co-ordinates the transition to the devolved system of government. This includes supporting and assisting the national and county governments in building their capacity to govern and provide services effectively. What is the composition of TA? The authority has nine permanent board members including the chairman recruited in a competitive process and approved by parliament. There are also eight alternate Permanent Secretaries from the then ministries of Planning, Local Government, Public Service, Justice, Finance, and Office of the President, Attorney General and a CEO. What is the relationship between TA, Commission on Revenue Allocation, Controller of Budget and the Commission for the Implementation of the Constitution? We all work on matters transition. Monthly, quarterly and annual progress reports are given to the CRA and the CIC. Although we are supposed to report to the CIC as an oversight authority, we are surprised that it now wants us dissolved. We dont know why, perhaps it wants some of our functions. It could be that they want to gain more relevance. CIC relationship with TA has been good but its latest calls for dissolution is inexplicable and a mischief. TA is one of the many agencies brought about by the new constitution, when are you supposed to wind up? We are supposed to wind up by March 5, 2016 or when the transition is complete, but the transition has just started. How do you rate Kenyans understanding of transition and devolution? It is very low; I dont remember the percentage but some study said not many people understand the devolution structure. Many of them question us what many elected leaders are doing. This calls for a sustained civic education; a mandate bestowed on TA as a body charged with monitoring and facilitating devolution transition. Anything to say about their attitude Besides the low understanding, the people at the same time are happy and hopeful on devolution. They have high expectations. They also raise concerns on how resources and taxation issues are panning out. They have described as unacceptable the taxation and stringent by-laws by the county governments. How long do you think civic education should take for Kenyans to understand devolution structures Civic education should be an ongoing exercise, come the next election many people would have understood what the whole devolution concept is about. Civic education is the key to public participation as stated in the constitution. Some say there is absolutely no civic education being undertaken by TA. What is your comment? We have had difficulties in carrying out civic education. As an authority we are supposed to ensure that civic education is taking place on devolution. Where we have had least education is on transition issues; we had few activities after the general election. Budget constraints has been our major problem - we only got Sh2 million to carry out transition civic education against the Sh87 million that we had requested from government. Do you think there is enough political will for devolution in government? It is on record that the executive vowed that there is no other option on devolution implementation; it emphasized that it must happen. At the same time it is natural that people want to hang on to the past, power and natural resources. The national government has a lot of interests too. This being the case, line ministries have failed to facilitate and very few have submitted transition implementation plans. In a nutshell, how would you describe the approach by government on devolution so far. It has been okay, that certain institutions including TA were put in place to facilitate devolution, but present calls to disband TA defeat the initial logic of establishing constitutional implementation institutions especially on the aspect of devolution. It is clear that the devolution process is being politicized. What about the tug of war between the National Assembly and the Senate The recent Supreme Court ruling has set the precedent right on county government issues. It rightly stated that on matters devolution the senates input is paramount. We now want to see the two houses working together on devolution. But we are also happy that many MPs do not want the TA to rush and implement the process as envisaged by the constitution. There are 16 pending devolution bills, this will slow down development. The sooner they are passed the better for devolution, although the delay may not be deliberate as it depends on the calendar of the two legislative houses. It is, however, desirable that the bills are passed. It has been said that TAs incompetence is holding back the transition to devolved government process. Is this the case? That is malicious. The whole talk of incompetence started immediately after elections when governors paid a visit to the President and asked that all the functions be transferred to counties at once. This is not right, the constitution talks about a phased transfer of functions, there is a criteria under TDGA Act 2012. The end of functions transfer will be in 2016 when many will appreciate what we would have done inspire of the many challenges we faced. There is a draft Miscellaneous Amendment Bill 2013 to replace TA with Inter Governmental Relation Technical Committee. What motivates the ministry of devolution and the CIC to call for your disbandment? On the CIC I have already said what I think could be their problem, but the devolution ministry could be harbouring its own vendetta. As a new ministry it could be viewing TA as a competitor. While TA facilitates and co-ordinates the transition from national to county governments, the ministry should give policy direction and implementation. The ministry wants its presence felt in counties yet TA has until 2016 before it wraps up. Are there any risks if TA is disbanded now? Devolution will greatly suffer for the lack of an independent entity to facilitate transition to county governments. Counties will be disadvantaged because the national government will easily influence the Inter Governmental Relation Technical Committee. Although governors think they control the committee, at some point they will miss TAs role of fighting for their rights like asset sharing. Kenyans are influenced by perception, such that disbanding this authority would send a strong signal that government is out to kill devolution which is the mother of Kenyas new constitution. Perhaps the push to disband TA is a cost saving measure No! I dont think so because the Inter Governmental Relation Technical Committee will replace TA. It is not a key consideration in this envisaged push. You claim to have put in place capacity and capability to drive devolution, why should you then fear the disbandment? It is not accurate to say so that the Transition Authority has put in place a capacity and capability system, what we put in place is a national capacity building framework via the Kenya School of Government and the Public Service. This framework needs to be implemented since TAs work remains to co-ordinate and facilitate the transition process. TA dissolution will allow the Inter Governmental Relation Technical Committee to continue with your mandate, so why is the worry? The law contemplates that TAs tenure is three years with critical issues like the transfer of functions, reallocation of assets, resources and liabilities to both levels of government was to be preceded by an audit. The TDGA Act also anticipated their co-existence until 2016 because their roles are different. Kenya has never had a national assets records audit for the last 50 years, TA is supposed to do it then come up with a mechanism to reallocate all the assets. We are already witnessing tussles between the national and county governments, something which the Inter Governmental Relation Technical Committee will not be able to do it objectively because it will lean towards the national government. Are the operations between national and county governments in harmony? It is not easy to tell now. It will become easy after we finish preparing the first quarterly report following the mass transfer of functions to counties in August 2013. The report will show counties performance on devolved functions. Drafts for most counties are there, by the end of November a comprehensive report on the state of governance in counties will be ready. What about staff rationalisation, is it complete? This is a process that is not supposed to look at only the end result of people left without jobs, the objective is to ensure counties are efficient in service delivery. Our Human Resource report is not complete as a result. County governments have just come on board, and we are still discussing with stakeholders to come up with a road map on how to rationalise staff because restructuring in ministries and departments has to be completed first then a joint programme will deal shortages and excesses. Initial findings indicate that we have ghost workers whom we must find out where they are in our counties. Which areas have the most teething problems while transiting from the former councils to county governments? This HR thing is daunting since counties inherited many employees from former county councils at the same time. There is also the transfer of functions and theres need for counties to absorb staff that formerly performed transferred functions. Inherited staff are causing serious problems because of huge recurrent expenditure with many staff seconded to work in local authorities earning more than colleagues in parent ministries. Why is it taking long to evaluate assets inventory of former councils? Assets evaluation is ready, what is not ready is information from line ministries, departments and agencies which include parastatals. We have secured an Asset Information Management System; a computerised system which will allow for the first time in 50 years the reallocation of assets between the two levels of governments. What is your observation of county governments capacity to budget preparation and cash absorption in devolution? There is an evident problem as pointed out by the Controller of Budget. It is also a bit too early to blame county governments since they did have enough time to go through the rigorous budget-making process. We hope that they will improve next time if they allow public participation and requisite personnel in implementing their budgets. There is no task without challenges, what are the main challenges? Fundamental of all is the politicking by multiple interests. Inadequate funding coupled with the lack an independent vote as it was initially during the 2012/13 financial year is also a big challenge. The money we receive now has been put under the ministry of devolution which means that expenditures by TA have to be signed off by the PS devolution. There has been a lack of appreciation and in some cases there has been rejection of local authority staff by county governments. Lack of policies, norms and standards in relation to the devolved functions and lack of proper records in relation to government assets to facilitate the audit of the assets by TA is also a hindrance. Inadequate up-to-date HR records is still a big challenge. In addition, TA had numerous challenges of office space, limited timeframe and few personnel initially. Has the funding been enough? No, especially the current budget, while we proposed Sh11.9 billion we ended up getting Sh555 million which is hardly sufficient for our recurrent expenditure. In 2012/13 we requested Sh1.4 billion but got Sh758 million. TA has 121 staff besides paying allowances to about 600 staff seconded to counties. The 600 were involved in setting up systems and structures for incoming county governments. What have you achieved so far? All functions previously performed by defunct local authorities and most of the devolved functions as per the Fourth Schedule to the Constitution have been unbundled, analysed and transferred. Public officers have been sensitised to ensure that provision of services is not interrupted. We have a host of achievements that I am sure you will not print in your newspaper in this interview, but just to add one, we have successfully prepared for and inaugurated county governments, besides developing a mechanism for co-ordination of the transition process including the recruitment and deployment of interim county transition teams to assist county governments in establishing prerequisite capacity, as well as identification of offices. Lastly, because of space, there is a mechanism for effective transfer of assets between the two levels of government. More information is contained in our quarterly and annual reports. There is an appointed task force to overhaul policies and laws governing state corporations, do you think you have a role in this? Yes, we should have... but for some reason they did not consult us. May be the President wanted to do it fast enough to control the drain in national coffers. It is part of our mandate which we shall not touch but we have already written to them on the same.
Posted on: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 18:12:20 +0000
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