Understanding Devolution

Unpacking the benefits of

a devolved system of Govt

By Boniface Mulu

An official of the National Civic Society Congress (NCSC),is highlighting the weaknesses and failures of the Kenya’s old constitution. Mr. John Nyongesa, who is a civic educator, was speaking recently at the Kitui Mini-Lodge and Restaurant in Kitui town.

He said that the county governments system in Kenya through the country’s new constitution has come to solve the problems suffered by Kenyans under the country’s centralised system of government. He said that the Kenya’s old constitution did not address the issues of Kenyans and what brings them together.

“It did not address the relationship between the government and the people. It was just one centralized system of government,” the civic educator further said. Nyongesa was lecturing

participants during a one-day seminar on county governments in Kenya organised for  the Kitui County Stakeholders’ Forum on Devolution by the NCSC through the  Centre for Law and Research International (CLARION) non governmental organisation.

Nyongesa said that the people who were on top in the Kenya’s old constitution grabbed each and everything because of the centralized leadership system.  “The president used to do allocation of property and development to the people through political patronage,” the NCSC official said.

“These leadership problems excluded people from government services,” he added.  He said that each of the 47 counties  in Kenya will have a self government. “But all the 47 counties will share the government at the national level,” he said.

He said: “We are inheriting the American system of government. Nyongesa said that the county people will be making their decisions as the people of one county. “You can’t succeed as a  county when you don’t know what is happening in a village,” he said.

Nyongesa, said citizens need to differentiate politics from administration, said that  the work of the county executive is to implement. He said that the maginalised people who include the disabled and the people living with the AIDS disease are also entitled to the county and the national resources.

He said that the national resources include water and wildlife. On his part, the NCSC head, Mr.  Morris Odhiambo, said that Kenyans have now started to forget about the provincial administration because  a new type of constitutional leadership exists in the country.

In his lecture, Mr. Mwachache Kileli, cautioned Kenyans to be careful while electing their county leaders. “In Nigeria there are counties that have  made their governors to be millionaires while the country’s citizens continue remaining poor,” Kileli, who is also an NCSC official said.

Kileli told the Kenyan citizens that it is their right to discuss their leaders including the Members of Parliament and the president." They have accepted the power from you and it is your right to criticise themwhen they make leadership errors.

If they don’t want criticism, they should not be in the leadership positions. They should be at home if they don’t want to be discussed and criticised by the public,” the NCSC official said.