Match county functions to funding, Speaker Kingi urges state
Senate Speaker Amason Kingi holds talks with Danish Ambassador to Kenya Ole Thonke on November 9, 2022.
Senators now want the national government to cost functions transferred to county governments in order to fully fund them.
This comes after the national government committed to fully transfer devolved functions to counties within the next six months.
Senate Speaker Amason Kingi expressed concerns that devolved functions have not been proportionally funded by the exchequer.
He said devolved units have for years suffered the burden of having functions that have not been costed, hence burdening the counties.
Already, the Intergovernmental Relations Technical Committee has identified and compiled all the functions that are supposed to be transferred to the county governments. The committee is currently involved in costing the unbundled functions, a process that is set to end next year in April.
Mr Kingi said there is a need to cost the functions so that counties are not under financial pressure to execute functions without attendant resources.
“As the functions go, then corresponding funds should follow them,” said the Speaker.
Mr Kingi was speaking when he hosted Danish Ambassador to Kenya Ole Thonke at Parliament Buildings.
Capacity building
Mr Kingi also stated that another barrier to the devolved units effectively executing their mandate of legislation and oversight is a lack of capacity building.
The former Kilifi governor said that members of the county assemblies (MCAs) need to be equipped with the necessary knowledge concerning their roles to effectively discharge their mandate.
“The biggest gap is capacity building. Other than politics, the MCAs do not internalise their roles. They need to understand their roles in legislation and oversight,” said Kingi.
He said that once the county legislators’ capacity has been built, the constant friction between them and governors will be reduced as each will be able to appreciate their roles.
Read: Why counties go broke
“The MCAs and the governors will complement each other to move their respective counties forward,” he said.
Mr Kingi told Mr Thonke that although there have been a number of impeachments against the governors, some of them have been thrown out for lack of evidence of wrongdoing.
Mr Thonke called for both the national government and counties to work together to move things forward and make devolution work. He also expressed concern over the sustainability of health funding, saying that the Danish government’s funding of the sector has been reduced.
However, Mr Kingi assured the ambassador that counties have committed the bulk of their budget to the health sector.
“Counties have differing priorities during budgeting, but I am yet to see a county government that does not apportion the biggest share of their budget to health,” he said.
