Local authority workers face the axe as counties take shape

Thousands of local authority employees will lose jobs in the next couple of years as Kenya moves to a new government structure rooted in the 47 counties, Planning minister Wycliffe Oparanya said on Wednesday.

Also read:Counties to offer provincial officials jobs, MPs assure

Mr Oparanya said close to half of the 20,000 jobs could be wiped out as the 200 local authorities are amalgamated into 47 counties to be managed by governors.

Each county is expected to take in at least five local authorities and to freely recruit the staff they need to execute their mandate, without regard for those currently serving in the urban, town, municipal and county councils.

“The counties are going to recruit people to work in them, but will only be bound by skills and constitutional requirements that will demand a casting of the net beyond the existing units,” the minister said.

Mr Oparanya, who was speaking at an economic symposium organised by the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya (ICPAK) to discuss devolution and governance, however, promised that public servants who miss out on the jobs will be compensated.

Mr Oparanya said all local authority employees will initially move to the transitional authorities from where county governments will recruit.

“The counties as currently constituted will take in a number of local authorities. My own county of Kakamega has seven local authorities that will be collapsed into one county,” he said.

It is the transitional authorities that are expected to take over the assets of local authorities within their territories before the counties become fully operational.

Besides the looming reduction in the number of local authorities, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has recommended that the number of wards be limited to 1,500 wards from the current 6,000, indicating that three-quarters of the councillors’ seats will become redundant in the next General Election.

Local authorities, including the City Council of Nairobi, spend nearly Sh10 billion on employee compensation, a figure that is expected to decline with the fall in head counts.

Mr Oparanya said that the Cabinet had formed a sub-committee to set up a national planning authority that help counties synchronise local development plans with those of the national government.

The committee has visited a number of countries with devolved governments such as Turkey, South Africa, Nigeria and Singapore to familiarise themselves with their functioning, the minister said.
“We expect that the proposal will have been considered before end of June to ensure that the counties develop in line with national government planning,” the minister said.
Mr Oparanya dismissed fears that Kenya’s long- term development plan the Vision 2030 may suffer derailment under a new government.
He said that the vision has created room for any new government to graft its ideas in the five-year medium term plans (MTP) without disrupting the long-term goals.
“There is a window for any incoming government to incorporate its manifesto in the vision. This will also ensure the inclusion of environmental issues that were not originally part of the MTP when it was formulated in 2008,” said the minister.
Counties are expressly barred from levying any new taxes apart from those provided for in the constitution or with prior consultations between the county secretary in charge of finance, the cabinet secretary in charge of the counties at the national level and the commission for revenue allocation.
Management of county finances will be rooted in the Public Finance Management Bill that the Cabinet passed last week and has been taken to parliament for debate.
Mr Oparanya described the PFM Bill as a good piece of legislation that will ensure better management of finances at the local and national levels contrary to criticism from sections of the civil society.
“The only issue that has not been resolved is the role of the provincial administration,” said Mr Oparanya.
MPs earlier this week express concern over a possible conflict between the provincial administration and county government. The Commission on Revenue Allocation (CRA) chairman Micah Cheserem has warned of immense challenges in the implementation of devolution because of the short time frame involved.

Mr Cheserem said some of the decisions had become difficult to implement at the local level because of resistance from vested interests, citing the example of the port of Mombasa.

“The Cabinet needs to take tough decisions such as those relating to reforms at the port,” said Mr Cheserem who announced that his agency was in the final stages of developing the criteria for allocating funds to the counties. Key factors in the formula include the principle of equality, population sizes, poverty, land area and fiscal responsibility.