I had promised myself that I would not write until the
elections were over in their entirety considering the amount of vitriol and
tribal hate that had/has pervaded the social media. But now the elections are
over and I would like to share my two cents worth on observations, which will
revolve around the personalities that contested the presidency, which will came
at a later date, but rather, on the devolved centers of authority otherwise
known as counties.
But before I delve into the counties, I would like to
congratulate both Raila Odinga and Uhuru Kenyatta for the strong and spirited
campaigns that had the country riveted for months on end, which I will also
write about at a later date as they were both great studies in management and
marketing. I would also like to congratulate them individually with the now
President-elect Uhuru Kenyatta for emerging victorious against many odds and to
PM Raila Odinga for choosing to addressing his grievances with the election
through the Supreme Court and for accepting the verdict of the court.
Now to the address the post-election period and what we
expect from the incoming governments. The constitution has devolved some
responsibilities, duties and functions away from the National Government to the
County Governments but left others such as national security, foreign
relations, education, agricultural policy, health policy and most of the
revenue collection in the hands of the hands of the National Government.
After the County Governments have settled down after their
honey moon, they will soon realize that what was devolved to them merely leaves
them with duties akin to those of village heads. Why do I reason this? Let’s
take a look carefully.
1.
The responsibility of security provision was
left entirely with the national government and as we all know too well, most of
the problems affecting the counties have their genesis in security, of lack
thereof. Most governors have promised to eradicate insecurity and provide jobs
to the millions of youths wondering aimlessly and hopelessly in our trading
centers. To achieve this in meaningful numbers, they must attract investors in
good numbers to set up enterprises that can create these jobs and as we all
know, any serious investor rates the security of his enterprise at the top and
so the governors have to tackle insecurity as their first priority. Now here is
the problem, security is the sole responsibility of the national government
through the police service and the provincial authority. Now, we all know that these
two bodies are part of the problem in terms of insecurity and couple that with
the sense of resentment they surely feel towards this “new guy” who has come to
replace them and deprive them of access to the gravy train and you get the idea
of the problem the governor has.
2.
All governors have promised to uplift the
education standards in their counties. Friends, the only education the governor
can improve are where the constitution empowers him to, and these are, drum
roll please, nursery schools and village polytechnics. Primary schools and
secondary schools don’t fall under his influence but are the responsibility of
the cabinet secretary for education for the policy formulation and
implementation and the successor to the Teachers Service Commission (TSC).
Unless the governors want to establish independent schools like happened in the
period before independence, then they will just have to sit twiddling they
thumbs as they wait and hope that Senators and MPs will push the national
government to focus on education in a much more meaningful way then previous
governments have. But considering the propensity of politicians to be concerned
with matters that benefit them directly, I wouldn’t burn the mid night oil
waiting for them to act on this as their first priority.
3.
Health is where the governors have influence
since apart from referral and level 5 hospitals and the national health policy,
everything to do with provision of primary health care was devolved. Before you
pop the champagne bottle, take a step back and just remember the many battles
the outgoing government had been involved in with unions representing
healthcare workers and in fact, nurses are still technically on strike.
Negotiating with these unions is the responsibility of the Salaries and Remuneration
Commission and whatever compromise they arrive at, the county governments have
to abide by them and pay them accordingly. Oh, before we are done with health
care provision, keep in mind that the bureaucratic, monolithic and inefficient
entity called KEMSA which supplies all government hospitals from the dispensary
to the referral hospitals with all supplies from drugs, bandages, beds,
cabinets to stationery is a parastatal controlled by performing, while it has
no competition in supplies to government hospitals, it has been running costly
advertisements in print and electronic media while hospitals have been
dispensing pain killers for all ailments.
4.
Most counties are dependent on agriculture and
the governors during their campaigns fell over each other promising all manner
of incentives and subsidies. We have a problem here my friends;
i)
To provide subsidy basically means cushioning
the farmer from high costs of agricultural inputs from seeds to fertilizer. The
world prices are currently on an upward trend due to the pace at which the
economies and population of China, India, Indonesia and Brazil are growing.
What this means is that the county governments will be digging deeper into
their coffers to subsidize the price of a product they have no control over.
ii)
The governors have also promised improved market
access to farm produce. This means they will have to construct new and modern
markets and improve access roads, which means more money being expended.
iii)
The governors have promised to kick out middle
men from the chain. At first glance this sound good, and for the most part it
is. However, this needs to be handled with a lot of care as these middle men
are businessmen exploiting a gap that already exists. They offer established
processors competition and hence keep farm gate prices high and for some
produce, they are the only buyers.
5.
Governors have also in their enthusiasm and
sometimes ignorance, been promising to build factories for things such as fish
processing, coffee processing, leather tanning, abattoirs, milk processing,
maize milling and animal feed production. This all sounds good and noble, but
remember the problems we are having with quasi-commercial parastatals. Most of
them are struggling and some virtually dead surviving on bailouts from the
government. The best way to handle this would be for the county governments in
partnership with the national government to provide an enabling environment for
private enterprise to establish this. But this will have to be initiated by the
governors as the national government will not initiate this as the same
officers who have been on the ground will still be the ones there and as we all
know, with them calling the shots previously, nothing much has happened.
6.
Road infrastructure is another area where the
county governors have a problem. They went around promising to fix all roads
from some promising to build miles of new tarmac roads to making all weather
roads in all areas. This is all good as the counties cannot grow without communication
and connection with the markets for what they will produce. Road construction
in Kenya is very costly affair and coupled with all manner of promises that
have been given, frustration will creep in when the pace of construction does
not match the expectations.
7.
Revenue collection will certainly be the most
problematic areas for a good number of governors. The national government has
retained most of the sources of collection and apart from the allocation to
county governments of at least 15% of the national budget, which when you think
about is not much, the county governments are left with cess, market fees,
business licenses and entertainment taxes and even then, they cannot just wake
up and impose new fees without the input of the Revenue and Allocation
Commission. Now good people, these are the same revenue streams that now
abolished local authorities had and they had less to do compares to the county
governments and most of them could not offer services. This was partly because
of non collection of amounts due to them and diversion (a polite alternative to
corruption). The governors have therefore no option than to go on aggressive
revenue collection by making sure all defaulters, dodgers and evaders are
brought into the net. This is the only way but it will not be popular as
unfortunately a lot of people do not like paying for their fair share but are
always keen to accrue to themselves the most benefits especially when the
government is involved.
All of these seem to point to the governor’s job as being an
impossible one, but it need not be. We have all been pointing out that the
governor’s job is purely managerial, I hold the firm belief that it’s also
political because with all the juggling he will have to do, he must have the
skills to get the MPs and Senators to do their bidding at the National Assembly
and The Senate and to have the County Reps. to play ball and support their
programmes. But all said and done, I don’t see a lot of the governors being
reelected in 2017.
