Article 6 of the Constitution provides for the devolution of services to 47 counties, and further provides that all State organs must, as far as is possible, ensure the accessibility of their services across the country. After the 2010 promulgation of the new constitution, the Ministry for Local Government established the Task Force of Devolved Government (TFDG), which researched the theory of devolution and international best practices around the framework, and consulted nationwide in the spirit of the Constitution, to produce a comprehensive report on a model devolution framework for Kenya.
The Constitution’s Fifth Schedule provides timelines by which enabling legislation should be in place for its full implementation, the basic legislation for devolution being in place by 2012. 2 However, TFDG’s mandate did not extend to the other important imperative covered by Article 6 (3): that state organs must also contemplate devolving or reforming their service delivery, to conform to the distinction of the National Government (NG) from the county level of government.
The significance of that clause is that whereas in the old dispensation, State organs reached the grassroots through the central government ministries in Nairobi, which gave directives to the sub-national levels – the provinces, districts and local authorities – the new dispensation requires such organs to consider how to interact directly with county governments (CGs). Significantly, county governments do not take orders from the national level. In other words, State organs – for this report, specifically constitutional commissions and independent offices (CC/IO) of the Constitution’s Chapter 15 – must, for efficiency, review their service delivery portfolios to relate to the new structure of government, distinguishing interventions directed at national government from those directed at county governments.