Blasted for its unpopular and repressive policies and decisions, the national government is leveraging on the old structure of the provincial administration to push its agenda to the village level.
The national government is also leveraging on the thousands of Community Health Promoters (CHPs) across the 47 counties as a soft power route to promote the health agenda.
The 2010 Constitution mandated the national government to restructure the provincial administration to focus on service provision, downward accountability and advance public interest rather than self or regime interests.
In doing so, the national government was required to ensure that it stays above inter and intra-governmental conflicts so as to protect the interests of devolution.
But the increased numbers of National Government Administration Officers (NGAOs) from the locational level downwards, show a government keen to ensure its presence is felt, a policy direction that has been blamed by legal and governance experts for duplication of roles and wastage of public resources.
Currently, there are 106,072 village elders, 9,144 assistant chiefs and 4,008 chiefs across the country, who report directly to the national government.
This is notwithstanding that there are Ward Administrators also doing the same job but reporting to their respective 47 county governments.
On top of this, the national government recruited 107,831 CHPs and deployed them across the 47 devolved units.
Notably, the government has published the Draft National Government Village Administration Policy that seeks to recognise and on-board village elders into the national government administration structure and facilitate them for efficient streamlining of service delivery down at the villages.
The policy seeks to integrate the village elders, to be renamed Village Administration Elders, into the national government administrative units effectively granting them legal authority, clear responsibilities and financial clout.
Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen notes that the policy will anchor service delivery at the grassroots while promoting “inclusivity, unity and sustainable growth” though Kenyans are of a different opinion.
“For a country whose constitution mandates access to services, the formal recognition of the village as the lowest unit of administration is not just constitutional but moral,” says Mr Murkomen.
But even as Mr Murkomen pushes for the revamping of the national government’s presence, lawyer and rights activist George Kegoro warns that the Kenya Kwanza government’s failure to properly involve the people in its policies is unconstitutional.
“There is little public involvement in these decisions, making it difficult to believe that they are meant to serve the public interest,” says Mr Kegoro.
Mr Lempaa Suyianka, another lawyer, warned that the entire set up of NGAO undermines devolution.
“I would have supported a system that seeks to integrate the NGAOs into the devolution system. Otherwise, what we are witnessing is abuse of public resources and funds,” said Mr Suyianka.
Article 189 of the constitution states how the nation and county governments shall relate in terms of cooperative governance.
“A government at either level shall perform its functions, and exercise its powers in a manner that respects the functional and institutional integrity of government at the other level and respects the constitutional status and institutions of government at the other level,” the article states.
The imposition on Kenyans of the affordable housing and Social Health Insurance Fund deductions, enhanced contributions to the National Social Security Fund and a general increase in taxation have led to widespread discontent. This, in addition to other claims like rampant corruption and abductions targeting government critics, threaten the popularity of President William Ruto’s administration and in June 2024 triggered youth-led protests against the Finance Bill. The proposed tax law was eventually withdrawn and President Ruto turned to rival Raila Odinga to form the so-called broad-based government that has co-opted members of the opposition ODM party.
“With all these government-instigated punishment towards its people, the administration needs a machinery of its own to propagate a narrative of its own to the people,” says Mr Herman Manyora, an analyst who is also a lecturer at the University of Nairobi.
He added: “But with social media easily within our reach coupled with a seriously enlightened Kenyan, other than pocketing salaries, I doubt the Chiefs and their assistants and the CHPs will do anything to change an image that is already impaired.”
The 2019 Kenya Population and Housing Census shows that there are 2,427 locations manned by Chiefs and 6,612 sub-locations headed by Assistant Chiefs.
The locations have since increased to 2,735 with sub-locations also increasing to about 7000.
With the repeal of the Chiefs Act that allowed the Chiefs and their assistants appointed by the Public Service Commission (PSC), the power to issue orders and to maintain order in their respective areas, came the National Government Coordination Act.
National government functions
The Act established an administrative and institutional framework for coordination of national government functions at the national and county levels of governance.
The law assigns the Chief the power to head a location and an assistant chief, a sub-location.
The PSC also has the powers to recruit “any other national government administrative officer in respect of a service delivery unit,” as outlined in the Act.
“A national government administrative officer appointed under this Act shall have all the powers necessary for the proper performance of the functions under this Act or any other written law,” reads section 16 of the National Government Coordination Act.
Their functions, as outlined in section 17 of the Act, states, “a national government administrative officer shall be responsible for the co-ordination of national government functions as set out in the Constitution, this Act and any other written law at the county level and other decentralized units as far as may be necessary.”
City lawyers Anthony Musau and David Ochami have raised alarm over what they consider the national government’s continued undermining of devolution, warning that attempts to revive or entrench structures like the provincial administration and National Government-Constituency Development Fund (NG-CDF) threaten the spirit and letter of the 2010 Constitution.
“In simple terms, this is corruption of the idea of devolution,” said Mr Musau, decrying the national government’s reluctance to fully embrace devolved governance.
He emphasised that county governments — being closer to the people —require more support, not duplication of roles. “Sadly, the county governments and the people of Kenya have not done much to resist this,” he added.
Mr Ochami argued that the Constitution clearly established executive authority at national and county levels, and the provincial administration should have been dismantled during the transitional period.
“Abolition and reformation of the provincial administration has been met with attempts to defeat the Constitution by subsequent regimes,” he said.
Both lawyers dismissed the continued existence of the National Government Administrative Officers and NG-CDF as unconstitutional, with Mr Musau stating: “The corruption of political structure to perpetuate old ways of doing things... will eventually collapse out of their own illegalities.”
Despite a Supreme Court ruling giving NG-CDF until June 30, 2023, to wind up, MPs have pushed a bill to anchor NG-CDF, the National Government Affirmative Action Fund, and the Senate Oversight Fund in the Constitution. Public participation sessions have been scheduled to discuss the proposed laws.
“No amount of legislative gymnastics can clothe NG-CDF with constitutional legitimacy,” says Mr Ochami.
On the Community Health Promoters (CHPs), established under the Primary Health Care Act of 2023, Health CS Aden Duale defended the programme as essential for delivering promotive and preventive healthcare at the household level.
As of December 2024, at least 93,390 CHPs had been equipped with eCHIS gadgets, and the programme received Sh3.23 billion in funding—split equally between the national and county governments.
However, Mr Musau criticised the CHPs' deployment alongside provincial administration officials, calling it “a duplication of roles that comes with wastage of resources.”
