Time to audit legislators’ performance

When the party primaries ended a few weeks ago, what struck me was the high casualty rate for members of the county assembly (MCAs) seeking re-election. Statistics have it that every electoral cycle around 70 percent of the elected leaders do not get reelected.

This is supposed to be an indicator of the citizen assessment of their performance in the ending term.

Legislators perform three traditional roles, the world over. They legislate, they oversight, and they represent their constituents.

Most of the time when electoral decisions are being made through you hear more complaints about their representation role and the extent to which they were able to bring development to their people, irrespective of the fact that this latter task is constitutionally vested in the executive.

However, oversight should be a critical concern for legislators and a major yardstick for the electorate to assess their performance and determine whether to renew their mandate or not.

Over a week ago, I had the privilege of speaking at the Africities summit in Kisumu on this issue. In preparing for the discussions, I looked for visual images to show the effects of oversight. I came across photos in one of the daily newspapers of the state of two hospitals at the county level. One was extremely modern while the other was dilapidated.

A lot of the discussions about these revolved around the performance of the governors. While correct, since they have the executive authority over health services at the county level, there is an oversight question to be raised too.

All the resources required for the construction and equipping of such hospitals are allocated through the annual budget process.

It is the MCAs that pass the budgets. As the relevant executive committee members implement the approved budgets, legislators through relevant committees have a duty to monitor the implementation process.

Thus, when the executive at the county or national level, fails to deliver on its mandate the question must also be the efficacy of the legislator in oversighting implementation. For this to happen effectively, it is imperative that members recognise that they are part of the government.

Collectively, citizens delegate their sovereign power to them and require that they use those to the benefit of society. Secondly, while they are all in government, the doctrine of separation of powers requires that the role of each arm is distinct.

Effective oversight requires that legislators are not involved in implementation. However, there is a growing tendency for those supposed to be doing oversight to get themselves involved in implementation.

There is a huge problem with having MPs and MCAs as contractors building roads and all other infrastructure. In these instances, instead of looking out for misuse of public funds, they end up looking for an opportunity to become a tenderpreneur,

I listened to campaigns in a county a few weeks ago, where a sitting MP was being asked to account for his engagement with the county leadership to demonstrate whether he really carried out oversight or if he was part of those who received tenders.

When the Constitution was enacted, term limits were introduced for the position of the chief executive of the country and the counties.

During this election, the first set of governors elected after the 2010 Constitution will be vacating office having served their maximum two terms.

A few have sought to be elected as legislators either in the National Assembly or in the Senate. While the law does not make this practice illegal, it brings to question the efficacy of separation of powers and oversight.

To have a governor who has just finished his term now sitting in the Senate seeking to oversight the use of resources he presided over is unacceptable. It requires a rethink.