Devolution: It’s time to mandate 70 per cent development spending at the county level

Twelve years into our devolved system of governance, Kenyans must now revisit a foundational question: What exactly is devolved?

It is not just power and functions. It is resources, public services and the right of citizens to access development at their doorstep. And to answer that question, honestly, we must return to the source. Chapter 11 of the country’s Constitution.

Article 174 is our North Star. It lays out the objects of devolution in clear, unambiguous terms – to promote democratic and accountable exercise of power, foster national unity while recogniSing diversity, give powers of self-governance to the people and enhance public services throughout Kenya.

All this points to one outcome. Development that is felt, seen and lived at the grassroots.

Yet 12 years later, we are still coddling counties with minimal accountability for how they spend public money. The law requires counties to allocate at least 30 per cent of their budget to development.

But if we are honest with ourselves, 30 per cent is far too little to meet the constitutional threshold of public services, equity and citizen empowerment. This needs to change and fast.

Let us first examine what the Constitution actually requires. Article 175 clearly states: “County governments shall have reliable sources of revenue to enable them to govern and deliver services effectively.”

In other words, resources follow functions. When counties receive money from the national government or raise their own revenue, that money must support actual governance and public services.

Devolving inefficiency

It is not meant to feed bloated bureaucracies, inflated allowances or political largesse. The money is meant to transform the lives of ordinary Kenyans.

Then there is Article 176(2), which provides that “every county government shall decentralise its functions and the provision of its services to the extent that it is efficient and practicable to do so.”

This is a profound obligation. It means that devolved governments must actively push services outwards – to wards, villages, to marginalized and underserved communities.

That decentralisation, by its very nature, requires infrastructure, staffing, investment and consistent capital injection. In short, it requires a development-oriented budget.

This is why the 30 per cent threshold for development spending, currently embedded in the Public Finance Management Act, is not only inadequate but also it is inconsistent with the spirit and letter of the Constitution.

A government that spends 70 per c ent or more of its resources on recurrent costs, salaries, meetings, vehicles and allowances is not devolving services. It is devolving inefficiency, bureaucracy and corruption.

The time has come for a new legislative conversation – one that shifts the minimum development threshold from 30 to 70 per cent.

Let us be bold enough to ask ourselves: Why not? What justification is there for a county spending less than half of its resources on actual, visible, impactful development?

The public has not fought for devolution only to fund a new class of elites at the local level. Kenyans want health centres, water systems, rural roads, modern markets, Early Childhood Development Education centres and youth empowerment programmess. These are not luxuries. They are the minimum fruits of devolution.

There are those who will argue that county governments need flexibility, that some services are labour-intensive and that recurrent costs are inevitable.

That is true to a point. But when recurrent expenditure consumes up to 80 or even 90 per cent of a devolved government’s budget, what we are seeing is not inevitability. It is abuse. It is prioritisation of the political class over the public. It is a betrayal of the very Constitution that created these county governments in the first place.

Necessary rule

It is worth noting that under Article 203, one of the key criteria for the equitable sharing of revenue is “the need for economic disparities within and among counties to be remedied”.

That cannot happen when development is an afterthought. That cannot happen when counties are given billions of shillings every year, only to spend most of it on themselves.

A 70 per cent development rule is not only possible, it is necessary. It will require amending the Public Finance Management Act to set this new minimum. It will require revising budgetary guidelines and strengthening oversight by the Controller of Budget and the Office of the Auditor-General.

It will require deeper public participation in the budget process so that communities can hold their county governments to account.

Constitutional vision

Above all, it will require political courage to confront the entrenched interests that benefit from the status quo.

But let us not pretend we have no choice. We do. The Constitution has already given us the blueprint.

It has told us what devolution is for. It has told us that resources are not just for sharing. They are for public service, development and justice. It is time we align our laws, policies and practices with that constitutional vision.

Devolution was never meant to be an end in itself. It was always a means, a vehicle for dignity, equity and transformation.

But vehicles need fuel, and in this case, that fuel is development spending. Not 30 per cent. Not 40 per cent. A full 70 per cent. That is my two cents.

The writer is a former Speaker of the National Assembly. He has also served as the country’s Attorney-General and Public Service and Human Capital Development Cabinet Secretary