Senate should allocate Deputy Governors specific and measurable jobs

Deputy Governors have petitioned the Senate to enact a law that will entrench allocation of specific duties in the devolved units. It comes as a shocker and a sign of bad governance when Deputy Governors are mistreated, harassed, demeaned and denied specific duties including not being invited or notified of County Executive Committee meetings, bearing in mind that they were elected as a pair with the Governor as the law demands. Ideally, the Governor and the Deputy should be people who share similar ideas on how to move the county forward, should have some good chemistry and have respect for each other. Since 2013 when devolved units came into being, few counties have had good relationships between Governor and Deputy and this has affected even the way the County Assemblies operate and legislate, how county functions are performed and hence slows down development. Most of the Deputy Governors and other workers in the devolved units are idle despite there being lots of work as envisioned schedule iv part ii of the constitution of Kenya 2010, which lists 14 major functions of counties, which requires all hands on deck include: First: Agriculture; second, County health services; third, Control of air pollution, noise pollution, other public nuisances and outdoor advertising; fourth, Cultural activities, public entertainment and public amenities; fifth, County transport; sixth, Animal control and welfare; seventh, Trade development and regulation; eighth, County planning and development; nineth, Pre-primary education, village polytechnics, homecraft centres and childcare facilities; tenth, implementation of specific national government policies on natural resources and environmental conservation; eleventh, County public works and services; twelfth, Firefighting services and disaster management; thirteenth, Control of drugs and pornography; and fourteenth, Ensuring and coordinating the participation of communities and locations in governance at the local level and assisting communities and locations to develop the administrative capacity for the effective exercise of the functions and powers and participation in governance at the local level.

Going forward, Deputy Governors and other staff at the counties should be assigned specific duties which are well funded, monitored and reported for devolution to make the impact for local development through counties as it was intended to. County Governors should embrace emotional intelligence in sharing and delegating functions even to the deputies. Even in cases where deputy Governors show signs of bigger ambition, Governors can embrace the concept of team of rivals embodied by the16^th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, penned down by Doris Kearns Goodwin on a cabinet of former political foes, which achieved tremendous progress for the US, including abolition of the most enduring evil against humanity – the slave trade. Dr Giti is an urban management, public – private partnerships (PPP) and environment specialist. mutegigiti@gmail.com , @danielgiti