COMMENTARY

By Kioko Wa Luka

Twelve years since the birth of devolution under the 2010 Constitution, Kenyans are faced with a sobering reality.

While devolution has undeniably brought government closer to the people and achieved measurable gains, especially in infrastructure and grassroots development, its implementation is riddled with incompetence, corruption, and a maddening lack of accountability.

Reports from the Auditor-General and Controller of Budget expose the rot. County governments are drowning in mismanagement, with public funds routinely siphoned off in elaborate schemes that leave development projects incomplete and essential services like health in shambles.

It is galling to read how billions are wasted year after year while citizens struggle to access basic healthcare or clean water.

The much-vaunted health sector, a key devolved function, has become a cautionary tale of what happens when funds are entrusted to a system ill-prepared to manage them.

Counties routinely report drug shortages, understaffed facilities, and dilapidated infrastructure, all while billions go unaccounted for.

The irony is infuriating—more funds are demanded, yet the little already allocated is squandered with reckless abandon.

Oversight, the supposed safeguard against such plunder, is laughable. County assemblies are toothless, held hostage by governors who control not only project funds but also the fate of the MCAs themselves.

Those elected to question the executive have instead become its cheerleaders, cheaply compromised by handouts and backroom deals. They have become remorseless captives of greed, ever salivating for bread crumbs and whatever else falling from the Executive Dinner Place.

Public participation—a constitutional requirement designed to give citizens a voice in county affairs—has been reduced to a meaningless ritual, a tick-box exercise that achieves nothing except draining resources.

Devolution, as envisioned, was supposed to empower counties and deliver services efficiently. Instead, it has birthed 47 mini-governments, many of them mired in grand corruption, nepotism, and outright theft. The framers of the 2010 Constitution, in their idealism, could not have anticipated the sheer scale of ineptitude, debauchery, and waste that would emerge.

Still, it must be said—devolution is working. Infrastructure has improved, roads have been built, and local economies are slowly coming to life.

But for how long will these gains be overshadowed by the bleeding of public resources? For how long will county governments cry for more funds while failing to account for what they already have?

The health and water sectors are deteriorating, single projects are funded multiple times, and corruption has reached industrial levels.

Is Kenya’s Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission capable of tackling simultaneous theft across 47 counties? The answer, unfortunately, is not reassuring. Something drastic must be done.

As Kenyans, we must ask ourselves some hard questions. What have we learned from 12 years of devolution?

Is it time to demand a full roll-out of devolved functions, or should we first fix the glaring systemic flaws?

How do we stop the haemorrhaging of public resources and ensure that county governments deliver on their mandates?

The truth is uncomfortable: devolution is a great idea poorly implemented. Unless we confront the rot, rethink its structure, and demand accountability, devolution will become a permanent liability rather than the transformative tool it was meant to be.

The writer is a seasoned public policy consultant