This archive report was first published on 29 June 2021.
June 29, 2021 - Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, county governments in Kenya have made significant strides in various devolved functions, according to the Council of Governors (COG) chair, Martin Wambora.
Speaking in Nairobi during the 8th annual devolution address, Wambora emphasized the importance of devolved governance in implementing transformative agendas in the country, despite the numerous challenges faced.
“Delayed disbursement of equitable share by the National Treasury has led to a myriad of challenges, including non-compliance of timely payment of employees’ salaries, delayed settlement of eligible pending bills, and derailment of counties’ response measures towards emergencies such as droughts, floods, and locusts in various parts of the country and the Covid-19 pandemic,” Wambora said.
He noted that underperformance in Own Source Revenue (OSR) coupled with increased fuel costs and agricultural inputs had severely affected the agricultural sector, with food production expected to deteriorate due to high production costs.
As a result of the pandemic, counties allocated an average of 32.9 percent of their total budgets to the health sector, a significant increase from 26.1 percent in the previous year.
“At the beginning of the pandemic, county governments had 6,094 isolation beds, currently, counties have 8,663 isolation beds. 36 counties have attained isolation facilities with a 300 bed capacity and functional ICU beds have increased to 440 from 242 functional HDU beds,” Wambora said.
Education, Trade, Tourism, and Agriculture were among the sectors adversely affected by COVID-19 restrictions, while ICT, Energy, and natural resource management registered marked improvements.
Devolution Cabinet Secretary Eugene Wamalwa challenged county bosses to adopt innovations in service delivery and to have transparency and accountability to citizens.
“It will take us having resilient counties for us to have a resilient country. In the middle of a global crisis, we have had an opportunity to improve. The challenge has made us do more in the health sector than we have done in the last fifty years,” Wamalwa said.
