- Deliberations focus on the various challenges facing County Assemblies.
- Bad law has given rise to opaque oversight activities by county assemblies leading to skewed development and service delivery in the 47 county governments.
By Adieri Mulaa
A conclave of the legislative arms of the county governments is being held in Mombasa to deliberate on the challenges facing county assemblies.
The consultative meeting convened by the County Assemblies Forum (CAF), brings together Speakers and Clerks from all the 47 county assemblies.
In attendance during the Friday, August 1, 2025 session was, CAF Secretary General Chege Mwaura and the umbrella body Chairman Seth Kamanza.
The session was jointly led by Mr Kamanza and the Chairperson of the Society of County Clerks at the Table (SOCCAT – Kenya), Mr Kamau Aidi.
"The meeting serves as a critical platform to align legislative priorities, foster institutional synergy, and reinforce the collective role of county assemblies in advancing devolution" CAF indicated in a statement.The deliberations focusing on the various challenges facing County Assemblies, is a milestone towards strengthening the county legislative organs to achieve the values of devolution since inception in 2013.
One of the challenges that legislative arms of devolved governments face is lack of autonomy in shared revenue allocations from the National Treasury.
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The share revenue allocations are channelled through bank accounts of the respective county executive.
This denies county assemblies direct access to their money as planned and appropriated in the annual or supplementary budgets, to execute their programmes, thus creating unnecessary delays and low absorption.
Since the inception of devolved governments, county assemblies have persistently pushed for a legislative solution to be passed by the Senate, de-linking their financial operations from the county executive.
The umbrella CAF argues that the existing arrangement gives governors a leeway to muzzle county assemblies, to extends of micromanaging the county legislators to compromise on effective oversight of the county executive.
Effectively, the legal discrepancy in the Public Finance Management Act allows governors, through their County Executive Committee Members (CECMs) and County Chief Finance Officers, to manipulate county assemblies.
The bad law has given rise to opaque oversight activities by county assemblies leading to skewed development and service delivery in the 47 county governments.
