Why governors complain about funding but people complain of corruption

What you need to know:

  • If drafters of the Constitution had not embedded this provision in the Constitution, the matters would be quite different today.
  • There are legal provisions that make it difficult for “centralists” to deny the county governments their share of revenue.
  • Although the governors are expected to add to their budgets by raising their own revenue, some have made minimal efforts in doing so.
  • The governors and the Speakers of their County Assemblies have generally been victims of their actions.

Devolution in Kenya is no longer work in progress. Residents in different counties are now able to point at a new project that their area has never had, or dreamt of having, since independence. Surprisingly, the 1963 period has become the point of reference for making judgement on what is happening in many counties.

This alone speaks a lot about the revolutionary nature of Kenya’s devolution and the Constitution in particular. Initially, my thoughts were that the 1963 benchmark is applicable only in the “traditionally” marginalised areas of Northern Kenya, but I have found this phrase used even in the traditionally privileged counties.

Accounting for this difference is the unconditional grant of not less than 15 per cent of the revenue collected by the national government. Adding to this is “own revenue” for those able to collect significant amounts.

If drafters of the Constitution had not embedded this provision in the Constitution, the matters would be quite different today.

The mandarins who grew through the central government would not have let this happen. They would have insisted on taking control of everything from the centre. They would not have trusted the county governments to take control of resources and planning.

Counties would have been starved of resources to ensure they do not function. Government funds also would have been diverted to what the mandarins would consider as important projects from their point of view.

ALLOCATE RESOURCES

This is how central government worked: officials would think on behalf of everyone. They would allocate resources to projects on basis of their own considerations.

This change in devolution is happening because the Constitution requires that it happen. It compels the national government to show commitment to provision of resources. And there are a number of legal financial provisions that prevent the mandarines to mess around.

There are legal provisions that make it difficult for “centralists” to deny the county governments their share of revenue. This has made devolution a permanent feature of national development; it cannot be wished away.

The transition to these changes has not been smooth; and it is not going to be smooth as we move towards the 2017 election.

The governors argue that they need more resources to make the difference even clearer. They complain that the amount of resources they get is insufficient for services that devolution is providing. Some argue that they need more than 40 per cent of the revenue collected nationally.

Surprisingly, the amount of money given to counties in the last few years is around this figure. Their demand can only mean that the counties prefer the law to protect this figure.

Unfortunately, the absorption rate of these budge is not the same in all counties. It varies considerably. Some have better capacity than others. Some have better ideas on what to do for development than others.

There are other problems too. Although the law requires that they spend not less than 30 per cent on development, there are a number of county governments that cannot meet this requirement.

Some are not able to do so for obvious reasons. They inherited a large work force from the former local governments. They pay them even though they do not need them.

The councillors in the former municipalities and the county councils brought in some of the staff. In fact, no one could beat councillors on the issue of milking the government.

In 2012 just before the councillors left office, many of them brought new people for employment by their local authorities. Other councillors demanded that those in casual employment terms transit to permanent employment in their respective authorities before the elections in 2013. They had their way in improving their salaries.

The councillors had their way. This is the group of employees responsible for increased recurrent expenditure at the county level. This is also why many county governments have not been able to fulfil the requirement that they use more than 30 per cent of funds for development.

The county governments that are able to use more than 30 per cent of their budget on development have another problem. A majority of the counties are getting into infrastructure because this is what is visible to the voters.

Few are bothered about the “soft ware” of development such as training programmes to impart people with skills. And those involved in infrastructure want everyone to see that the county government – and His Excellency the Governor – is indeed responsible for the small road or the toilet on the far end corner of the market.

Some of the governors have become quite innovative in announcing their presence in all corners of the county through projects. They plant large billboards on the roads to announce that they are rehabilitating the road.

They plant others next to a market to announce that they are renovating the market or building a toilet and so on. The urge to be visible at the county is so much that some have gone out of the way to put bill boards announcing planned rather than on-going projects.

It does not end here. Some governors have been seen competing with MPs over Constituency Development Fund projects. Some have designed hilarious methods of crowding out the CDF projects if the MP is not allied to the governor. In some instances, county officials are duplicating a similar project or simply re-painting the project and putting the governor’s bill boards. The hilarious nature of this competition is a story for another day.

Although the governors are expected to add to their budgets by raising their own revenue, some have made minimal efforts in doing so. In fact a common complaint everywhere is that the counties are not collecting enough revenue. They complain of the national government not giving them enough money. But they also do not collect enough revenue.

COLLECTING ENOUGH FUNDS

The truth of the matter is that neither are all the county governments nor the national government collecting enough funds to add to the government kitty.

With regard to the national government, the actual number of Kenyans paying tax today could be less than half of the actual people who should pay tax.

And the many people paying tax are the ordinary person in the street and in the farms rather than the well to do. This is a story for another day.

The county governments are not able to raise as much revenue as they should for completely different reasons: the MCAs. The MCAs, as is now well known, are the guillotine on each governor’s neck. In many instances, they demand the governor to do as they wish lest they impeach them.

Such threats are often made to silence anyone keen from stopping them from “milking the county coffers”. The governors and the Speakers of their County Assemblies have generally been victims of their actions.

More important is that they prevent the governors from collecting local revenue at the county on argument that attempts to increase revenue would mean additional financial stress on their voters.

Where any governor has defied them, they mobilise these voters to protest in the streets against the governor. This is of course quite scaring for the governor. They give in with ease.

In the traditionally marginalised counties, the governors and the MCAs appear to be agreed that they cannot tax their people because they have never “eaten” the government. Some argue that they must “eat from the centre” to build economic capacity suitable for taxation.

There is a common view that they do not have enough properties or businesses to tax – the administrative cost of mapping and taxing these streams is higher than the amount they would get from them. Of course there is a political argument hidden deep these arguments.

They are confident that they have enough from the national government to undertake development work. They are also afraid that their MCAs will tighten the guillotine on their neck if they raise taxes.

This is the tragedy of our devolution. Everyone wants more for contributing very little.

 

Prof. Karuti Kanyinga is based at the Institute for Development Studies (IDS), University of Nairobi; [email protected]