Kenya’s devolution

FIGURE 2.1

Institutional framework for verification and transfer of assets in Kenya’s devolution

The president and parliament

National and County Government Coordinating Summit

Commission for the Implementation of the Constitution Council of Governors

Transition Authority (TA)

Transition plan TA chair, administration, committees, and staff

Outgoing entities Transition principal officer

Source: Based on Transition to Devolved Government (TDG) Act 2012. Note: Red arrows indicate command; blue arrows indicate reporting duties. Transition plan and progress report

County governments Transition principal officer

To support a smooth and controlled transition, the PFM laws (PFM Act 2012 and PFM Transition Act 2013) stipulated establishment of a transition county treasury in each county a year before elections, chaired by a transition principal officer who ought to report to the TA (table 2.1). This way, the TA was empowered to monitor, guide, and control all key aspects of PFM and asset and liability management in both the outgoing and incoming local entities a year before election.

The TA upon induction became the custodian of all national and county assets and liabilities—with a moratorium on asset transfers without TA approval (table 2.1)—still being held and used by various national government entities and 1,500 outgoing local entities from March 9, 2012, but also after induction of county governments until March 4, 2016. The well-justified logic behind this arrangement was that the TA was assumed to have (or was enabled to acquire) the professional and technical capacity to safeguard assets and liabilities during transition and prepare an initial inventory of assets and liabilities, because the outgoing local entities had neither asset registers nor even simple but reliable inventories.

The sectoral units (water, education, health, and so forth) of the outgoing entities had a substantial volume of asset information that was often incomplete and unverified but accessible to the TA one year before the election. There was an initial plan that all data on assets and liabilities of both the national government and the former local authorities would be stored in an Integrated National and County Asset Register Center housed initially at the Office of the Auditor General, but this plan has not materialized (TA-ICPAK 2013). The TA thus had