Why President Ruto was right to eliminate Devolution CS position - Experts

Urban Development Planner Prof. Alfred Omenya and Governance and Education Rights advocacy specialist Janet Ouko have welcomed President William Ruto's move to exclude the position of Devolution Cabinet Secretary (CS) when he announced his preferred ministerial nominees at State House, Nairobi.

Speaking on Citizen TV's NewsNight Show on Tuesday night, Omenya who was part of a panel interview alongside Ouko, noted that the reform was long-overdue, pointing out that Kenya does not need a devolution minister based solely off the success of devolved governments.

Devolved units were first introduced in the 2010 Constitution and piloted across the country in 2013.

"That is one of the things that I liked about this Cabinet in that that we don't actually have a Devolution Ministry. We devolve functions, we create counties so why should we create a Ministry for counties?" he posed to show host Waihiga Mwaura.

"To me that was a Ministry that was unnecessary. It was a Ministry that was linked with the national government insisting on clinging on to some functions that should have been devolved. I am very happy that it has disappeared. All functions that are devolved should go to the counties hence there is no reason why we should have such a ministry."

To add onto his argument, Omenya noted that Kenya already has governmental structures in place such as the Intergovernmental Budget and Economic Council (IBEC) which he says can already initiate information sharing on the performance of county governments, with regards to the execution of their functions, without having to rely on a Devolution Ministry.  

"We already have structures and systems such as IBEC and so on and in fact those functions are already spelt out in the constitution. In fact, those are some of the functions of the DP and in fact we do have," he said.

"As far as I was concerned all the issues that the constitution said should have been devolved should have been devolved in total."

Omenya's utterances were mirrored by Ouko who noted that after nearly ten years of transferring powers and funding from the national government to counties, devolved units can now function optimally and independently.

"Considering that the last ten years devolution was very young, initially it made some sense to have a devolution ministry so it can guide the counties and ensure that they are stable but I think 10 years down the line we can definitely say the counties have taken off and they know what they are supposed to do," she said.

"We don't need a standalone devolution ministry right now."