Monday, March 02, 2009

Delayering Kenya's governance structure for faster trickle-down

It is said that the more fatty layers yopu have, the more likely you are to suffer a heart attack, cancer and sugar diseases like diabetes.
In Kenya today we have two parellel layers that are fatal to our economic or any other health. When you think about the trickle down effect (think GoK funds as a plate of chicken pieces being passed down the layers), how is it going to happen in these two fat parallel structures?

A political one
president->pm->vp->2dpms->40ministers->52 assistant ministers->210mps->3800councillors-> CDF committees
and an administrative one
president->minister for internal security->ps->8pc->107dc->262do->1000chief->2500sub-chief.

For the political structure, I propose we do away with the councillors from the political structure and if we must, just have an elected mayor to work with town council civil servants to deliver. Councillors are an expensive (Ksh200k each) waste. 12 ministers with two or three substantive assistant ministers would also do nicely.

On administration, I propose firstly that we have 10 provinces with Rift Valley and Eastern provinces being divided into two. Then do away with districts or by converting divisions into districts. I am not sure what districts viability currently is. Then do away with locations.
So that slims the administrative structure by two levels by removing the dc and chief posts.
I also propose that we make the officers in these positions part of the wider civil service so that job holders are all rounders rather than just good at administration. It'd also widen the career scope of say a land officer in Kajiador to go and be a division officer in Vihiga.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I agree that Kenyan needs some radical change.

Unfortunately Tribal politics remains the biggest hurdle to almost all positive initiatives.

If "our man/woman" is president, then "Our tribe rules" Kenya.

Such a mentality is dangerous when you have 40+ tribes vying for 2 or 3 "important" positions, it's only a matter of time before tribal conflict emerges.

How do we tackle this? Maybe ICT can help? Check out my latest post...

coldtusker said...

Kenya... not in my lifetime...