BY VICTOR ADAR
Familiar problems of terror gangs, poverty, hunger and unemployment bedevil the infant devolved system of governance. According to “Securing the Counties: Options for Security after Devolution in Kenya”, a study released last December, security management and governance must be addressed if counties are to be secured.
The study addresses challenges posed by incomplete devolution in the counties of Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu, Garissa and Turkana, which are shared by other counties in Kenya. “Counties should develop diversity strategies as a statement of their commitment to the principle, and also as part of their fulfilment of the constitutional obligation to ensure diversity,” says the study.
Supported by the Centre for Human Rights and Policy Studies, the study adds that the process of Devolution is being hampered by, among other things, overlapping roles, discord and mistrust within National Government Administration Office, and the police, county governments as well as security actors in counties. Counties ought to reflect on the broad ethnic diversity of the residents in positions of leadership at all levels by ensuring that these diversities are celebrated rather than discouraged.
County level mechanisms for promoting diversity and addressing the deep-rooted problems of ethnic exclusions must be promoted, the study further notes. As part of their development plans, county governments are required to report on efforts to promote and ensure diversity. The National Cohesion and Integration Committee is also required to join the bandwagon as a partner ensuring that mechanisms to promote diversity and national cohesion are executed.
It is also important that counties are encouraged to collect data on security and insecurity as an integral aspect of development planning. When frameworks for collection of data relevant to security planning and improvement is well developed, and capacities strengthened, then will counties race ahead of insecurity ten folds.
The study also notes that business people have also played a major role in supporting county investments in the area of security, through providing equipment such as vehicles to the police, and have driven the wheel of development in terms of giving recommendations on technologies like CCTVs.
“In many of the counties, long-standing resource conflicts – including those linked to land – are yet to be resolved. County governments and county leaders have a critical role in preventing these conflicts by facilitating inter and intra-community dispute resolution,” the study says. There is no denying that devolution is re-shaping, re-structuring and transforming how security is governed and managed. Whereas a number of counties have invested in security through financial allocations to bolster the purchase of policing equipment, none have made the obvious balance between development mandate and the preventive aspect of security. Capacity for this form of analysis and subsequent policy planning and resource allocations is urgently needed for the county executive as well as the assemblies, to allow counties to adopt a multi-actor approach to deal with security challenges and logically incorporate the contributions of the business actors, civil society as well as those with vested secret in planning and development implementation processes in the counties.
In what the study views as long-standing injustices (picture unresolved land problems such as lack of title deeds for indigenous area residents and victimisation at the hands of police), radicalisation is more often than not taking place openly.
Recent discoveries of minerals and oil are triggering new conflicts for control of land and resources. Turkana County has been particularly affected where unresolved conflicts have fed into the new conflicts, thereby complicating matters.
Devolution has introduced new minorities and majorities (ethnic, clan or regional). This ethnic exclusion has led to discrimination, outright hostility against those perceived as “outsiders”, and created new sites for conflict even where they had not previously existed. Indeed, this is a tall order for county governments in meeting the expectations of not only the country’s 40 million people but also potential investors.
It was during the March 2013 General Election that devolved system of government was voted for by Kenyans and envisaged by the 2010 Constitution with an aim of correcting regional economic and political marginalisation while promoting participation and accountability. The central government, however, retained control of some core functions like security and education. Although core mandates of county government units are in what is conventionally labelled as “development” functions, devolution is set to transform all governance process. A massive business potential is beckoning in the counties as there are huge areas of untapped natural resources, talk of deposits of oil in Turkana, coal discovery in Kitui, or even the booming farming and tourism sector. Security in counties still needs strengthening for improved growth in counties to be realised.
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