How crooks are already shaping the shape and future of counties in Kenya

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By CHARLES ONYANGO-OBBO
Posted  Wednesday, July 17  2013 at  20:00

The good people of The Gambia have a wonderful saying; that “He who feeds the child must be allowed to lick his fingers”.

Many Kenyans might accept that, but the mood in the country today seems to be that the governors and officials of the newly-devolved counties are not just licking their fingers, but eating all the children’s food (county budgets) in a binge of corruption and extravagant expenditures on expensive cars and senseless foreign travel.

The county officials are being corrupt, greedy, and reckless, yes. But to return to the Gambian proverb, the fact that the person who feeds the child is allowed to lick his fingers means there is food to feed the child. In real life, many children go hungry.

Therefore, the fact that there is corruption in the counties is proof that money has been transferred from Nairobi to the counties.

And that in turn is evidence that one of the critical elements of devolution, the redistribution of resources, is happening. If it had stalled, the governors would have nothing to lick.

Therefore, along with the corruption and hogging, one of the important discussions that need to happen is how counties will evolve.

Devolution has been on the Kenyan political agenda from independence, but it took a dramatic turn in the post-election violence of 2008.

That traumatic experience convinced most that if power and the national cake were not dispersed to the rest of the country, the fight for the groceries at the centre would destroy Kenya.

The antidote was devolution.

Partly because the new Constitution provided for devolution and the corollary limitation of presidential powers, it was voted with a thumping majority in the 2010 referendum.

The second stage of the evolution of devolution was the March election, which brought in governors and county representatives.

We are now in the third stage, which is basically establishing the local county structures and erecting the funnel to distribute money to the devolved units.

These are preliminary stages, and the entrenchment of counties will require something entirely different — the rise of a political and economic elite that has a vested interest in their existence. Let’s call them “the Countyariat”. Right now, the Countyariat doesn’t exist. How will it arise then?

Unfortunately, a major source of their rise will be patronage. In the next few years, friends of county officials will grow rich from contracts to build offices, supply vehicles, provide office supplies, and so forth, often at inflated prices.

These groups, while they parasite on devolution today, could in future have a more honourable interest in viable, competently run counties so that they can sustain their businesses dealing with it.

The other critical issue is how counties will mature as political entities. A large part of this will depend on non-political actors. The corruption and waste we are seeing this early, for example, is actually creating a market for the growth of a local media that shines the spotlight on devolved units and exposes the crooks.

The rising discontent will also impact the evolution of county opposition politics. In the last election, most governors were allied to national party coalitions like the Orange Democratic Movement or the now ruling The National Alliance, and there were a sprinkling of independents.

Grievances against county managers will lead to the mushrooming of local political parties based on clan, districts, or whatever, that will put pressure on governors. They will also be the basis on which the next county elections in 2018 will partly be contested.

Over the next five years, we are, therefore, likely to see the slow decoupling of county politics from national politics.

This happened in Europe years ago, where you find that Green parties, or fringe right-wing anti-immigrant parties that don’t bother to contest national politics, do so in local and regional polls and win seats there.

Of course, the county experiment could also be discredited through the corruption of its officials, and collapse. But even then, at least there will be a real life basis to scrap them.
So, if we flip the coin, criminal as it might be, the monies being eaten in the counties by thieving governors could be considered a kind of research and development expenditure on devolution.

cobbo@ke.nationmedia.com &twitter.cobbo3