Counties to offer provincial officials jobs, MPs assure

The Provincial Administration will be scrapped following an assurance in Parliament on Tuesday that no parallel system of government will be allowed to run alongside the counties.

The Provincial Administration officials will be redeployed as development co-ordinators at the counties.

“To clear ambiguity, we will provide in the County Bill an explicit provision that there will be no parallel system running alongside the county government,” Local Government minister Musalia Mudavadi said as MPs concluded debate on a Bill that aims to enhance consultation between the national and county governments.

While taking the Inter-Governmental Relations Bill through its second reading, MPs said the functions of the Provincial Administration and county government structures must be synchronised to avoid conflicts.

The MPs raised some concerns on the Bill, key among them the structures it seeks to establish, funding, oversight and functions of the Provincial Administration.

The MPs also clashed over the functions of the proposed National and County Government Summit and the Council of Governors.

The Bill proposes the establishment of the National and County Government Summit, Council of County Governors and the Intergovernmental Relations Technical Committee.

The summit to be chaired by the President and constituted by the 47 governors is the top organ in the inter-governmental relations.

The Bill spells out mechanisms for dispute resolution between national and county government as well as among counties.

Mr Mudavadi said that provisions have been provided under articles 25 and 26, to ensure that national government provides adequate resources to counties to perform their functions.

MPs said Provincial Administration as currently constituted is no longer tenable and asked Internal Security minister George Saitoti to table a Bill to reform the system.

“We must look at ways to provide officers in this system a safe landing ground but the system must be done away with,” said Gwasi MP John Mbadi.

Tigania East MP Munya differed with Garsen Member Danson Mungatana over the roles of the governors in the proposed National and County Government Summit and Council of Governors.

While Mr Mungatana and Ikolomani MP Boni Khalwale called for the merging of the roles in the two organs saying it may create a bureaucracy, Mr Munya said that they are distinct and should be retained.

Earlier, the MPs passed the County Government Bill, which now awaits scrutiny in the committee stage and began debate on the Transition to Devolved Governments Bill.