Transition team ties safety of public assets to new term

The Transition Authority (TA) says public assets will be at risk if its term and the entire transitional period is not extended.

Kinuthia wa Mwangi, the TA chairman however had a difficult time convincing MPs on the need to extend the authority’s mandate charged with overseeing the transfer of functions, assets and liabilities between the two levels of government.

“We are in the middle of critical work, including auditing of assets and liabilities. No single asset has been audited or registered in this country and we shall leave it in abeyance for anybody to have a take. In reality, the assets of this country is in a no man’s land,” he said.

Mr Mwangi said development of a framework to unbundle concurrent functions, transfer of seconded staff resources from national to county governments, rationalisation and deployment of human resources, auditing of all assets and liabilities of the defunct local authorities and the preparation and validation of an inventory of existing assets and liabilities of the national government and other public entities are some of the work that is pending.

The Sixth Schedule to the Constitution stipulates that the TA mandate comes to an end three years after first General Election. This means that the term of TA will automatically lapse on March 4, 2016, exactly three years after the General Elections.