When they eventually decide to give nominated representatives a Fund of their own, whether in the national government or the county governments, it will be the natural progression towards the "everyone must account to the people" mantra that is being peddled with alacrity in the Senate by Kipchumba Murkomen, the youthful Senator from Elgeyo Marakwet. The Constitution, the County Governments Act, 2012, and the Intergovernmental Relations Act, 2011, are silent on what the role of the Deputy Governors should be save for the anodyne constitutional requirement that they will deputise for Governors and take over when Governors are unable to perform their functions.
I believe the creation of a near-mirror image of the National Government at county level was a mistake, especially in the structure of the county executive, even with the current constitutional limitations. There was no need to create the position of deputy governor; it would only be of use if the county government was such a massive enterprise that executive authority needed to be shared to ensure effectiveness and efficiency. Governor Mutua's county government is proof that while a deputy is a political necessity, he is not necessarily a management one. Governor Kidero and Governor Wambora, on the other hand, are proof that in some very special cases, a deputy is a management priority of the highest order.
Kenya tends to legislate away its problems without ever solving them. Every time there is a political crisis, the country's leadership instinctively reaches for the draftman's pen and enacts a new law with alacrity. It is how we ended up with the demon seed that was the Grand Coalition between 2008 and 2013, and how the Mututho Laws became a byword for ineffective illicit alcoholic beverage control. Mr Murkomen proposes to solve a political problem in the structure of county governments by amending the County Governments Act and the Intergovernmental Relations Act by assigning specific statutory functions to deputy governors. Like all previous attempts to sort out what are essentially personality clashes using the law, Mr Murkomen's plan will come unstuck.
Mr Murkomen and those who would defend devolution must admit that the problems bedeviling devolution are not with the law; they are not even with the administrative set up, but with the intellectual, political and managerial calibres of many of the governors and nearly all the elected and nominated representatives in the counties - and in the Senate. It is especially the limited intellectual capacity of members of county assemblies that make one weep with despair. They have adopted the avaricious and destructive habits of the much-loathed defunct local authorities' councillors. They demand finances for the most wasteful activities and they do it without taking into account the long term cost of the failure to establish facilities for the future of their counties. In this they are supported by self-interested Senators who simply wish to remain in the limelight even when they can see that the short term political gains will only create strategic problems.
Deputy governors do not need to account to voters for anything; but the county government must, collectively, account for itself. Of course, every now and then, individual members of the county government must be held to account, but the important thing for voters is not that the deputy governor has functions to perform but that the county government is providing services to the people. If Mr Murkomen wants the people to thank him for his selfless service in the Senate, he must start finding ways of ensuring that county governments are not held hostage to political passions. Giving deputy governors unnecessary statutory functions is not the way to go.
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