The Council of Governors Chairman, H.E. Hon Wycliffe Oparanya and a delegation of other Governors met with Development partners. The meeting focused on the status of existing projects supported by Developments partners, the challenges faced in implementation and ways to counter the challenges to ensure the objectives of the various projects are realized.

Devolution has now taken root in Kenya. The Development partners and the Council of Governors agree that even with the challenges experienced by County Governments and Development partners, devolution is indeed working in Kenya and all stakeholders should continue working together to ensure that it’s a success.

A great impediment to the progress of devolution has been the inadequate resources to counties to implement critical devolved functions. Most of the resources meant for devolved functions are withheld by the National Government. The delay in release funds by the National Treasury has affected service delivery. Furthermore, resources allocated by development partners have also fallen subject to these delays. As a resolution to this, County Governments and Development Partners have to work on costing of all devolved functions to ensure actual and adequate resourcing of County Governments.

The Council of Governors already formed a committee that is looking into the looming constitutional review before the year 2022. The task of the committee is to ensure that the reforms focus on devolution and is devolution friends. The Council of Governors was therefore tasked to utilize the proposed referendum window to factor a reasonable percentage increase on the vertical share of revenue from the current 15%. In addition, the Council was asked to undertake a clear mapping of Development Partners’ projects in Counties support through other agencies / non-state actors should be done to clearly show what each of partners is investing and through who.

As a mitigation measure to avoid duplication of projects and funds by the various partners, Development partners were tasked to collate all their projects being coordinated at the Counties in order to have a structured engagement towards their implementation. Some of these projects were pointed to being implemented by NGOs without the knowledge of County Governments. However, a structured engagement will ensure concerted efforts for better results.

The team purposed to hold a quarterly status review meeting between the Governors and the Development Partners. In addition the Council Secretariat was tasked to call for a meeting with National Treasury, Governors and Development Partners to discuss the challenge of delayed release of funds and its implication to the success of devolution.

Also present at the meeting was Council of Governors Vice Chair H.E Mwangi Wa Iria, H.E. Prof Paul Chapkwony, H.E. Lee Kinyanjui, H.E. Martin Wambora, H.E. Kiraitu Murungi, and H.E. Wycliffe Wangamati.