A country on its knees: A tale of Agriculture in Kenya

The Kenyan Government considers agriculture as the cornerstone for socio-economic prosperity. Agriculture is placed at the helm of all national development blue prints; vision 2030 and the Jubilee government manifesto among others. In fact a mega project like the Galana Kulalu irrigation project fortifies this!

With our state of economy, agriculture will for many years to come remain key to ensuring food and nutritional security for Kenyans, mostly small-scale farmers who draw a living from it. It is also a main propeller to our industrialization (as we await coal and oil exploration and exploitation in Lamu and Turkana) by virtue of being the principal wellspring of raw materials, thanks to the adoption of modern farming technologies. All these success stories about agriculture become more real only with favorable policy framework.

 Kenya, like many other countries, is faced with the challenge of increasing population and rising competition for agribusiness both in the regional and international arena. Meeting this would mean breeding a crop of young farmers who will in days to come fill the gaps left by ageing farmers considering that the average age of a Kenyan farmer is 65 years. Basically, agriculture is practiced by pensioners! A retrospective follow up of these “young farmers” depicts the policy injustice that the Government is doing to this golden sector.

 Related notification uncovers that the formal platforms, more so in the primary and secondary institutions, for the dissemination of farming techniques to the “hope of tomorrow” are either breaking down, inadequate or lacking trainers as a result of the emerging socio-economic challenges.

By nature, human beings will only pick what is perceived to be important. It may be a shock that agriculture education may no longer be a single entity subject in secondary schools, as it happened in primary school. This is imminent. There is a decline in the number of students taking agriculture in secondary schools, where it’s also an optional subject. Now is it really logical for a system to function without a spine?

 The negative discernment that agriculture does not compete equally in the job market could be one of the major reasons. The subject itself is downplayed by both parents and students, who by their gender and social upbringing opt for the ‘marketable subjects’. Agricultural programs in schools are stereotyped to be primarily for the males. How practical is it that a kid raised up in the city will pick up agriculture after school, which throughout their education has been an option? Their parents, who by default are the role models, do not practice agriculture.

 An ‘enterprising parent’ would rather use theirs plots available to establish a real estate rather than use it for agriculture. Those with interest lack the adequate exposure to the practical aspects of the subject, with teaching increasingly becoming superficial and exam oriented. Consequently, for a long time, there hasn’t been an effective way to integrate secondary agricultural education with most of the lucrative courses that are offered in the universities, which almost all the students are nowadays struggling to pursue.

As such, it would be more appropriate for guardians, educators, contrivers and policy makers to encourage agriculture education right from primary school.

 To develop self-dependence, problem-solving abilities and resourcefulness, learning agriculture will occupy students with activities that direct them to various agricultural ventures which may not exigently require high capital to head start, but significantly boost the economy. Agriculture can never flourish in isolation; increasing budgetary allocation for research may make it regain the lost glory.

I don’t think people in Europe got handouts in order for them to innovate and eliminate poverty. We would therefore greatly enhance this conversation by suggesting how we can create value in our people without paying them to be helped.

I have noted with gratitude that some of my readers make very constructive comments.  This form of crowd-sourced solution is what will lead to a sustainable solution, and I urge them to please let us continue thinking together.

Share this article to the corridors of power. All stakeholders and law-makers need to support agriculture - it is the only way out of poverty for the multitudes.

                               

Failed oversight: Senate and county assemblies to blame

After five years of experience with devolution, Kenyans have a perfect opportunity to review and improve upon the challenges that have bedeviled accountability in county governments.

Devolution is meant to promote democratic and accountable exercise of power, foster national unity, give powers of self-governance and ensure equitable sharing of resources.

It has potential to reduce the vicious competition we see in Kenya every electoral cycle over control of State House.

Every year for the last five years, Parliament has enthusiastically approved cumulative cash disbursements in excess of one trillion shillings to the 47 county governments. However accountability and oversight of these funds has been weak.

The role of oversight at the counties is shared between the Senate and County Assemblies. This shared role has been the source of much confusion which prompted the Council of Governors to seek a constitutional interpretation.

The High Court ruled that both bodies had a legitimate duty to carry out oversight, but cautioned that they should avoid concurrent investigations.

It would be difficult to enforce part of the ruling on concurrent investigations. Senate and County Assemblies operate at different levels of government hence there does not exist a conveyor belt requirement.

Furthermore, the Constitution in Article 229 (8) gives the two bodies only three months within which to complete their mandate. A failure of one body to conclude its investigations on time would result in a failure of the other to undertake its constitutional requirement.

It is expected that an adverse audit opinion should elicit sanctions on the part of the accounting officers at the counties. To give effect to its recommendations, Senate established an Implementation Committee to follow up resolutions of the House and ensure they are implemented by the respective organs.

However this approach has not been effective since it requires the intervention of other institutions with the mandate to investigate or prosecute.

At the county assemblies, members have been rendered impotent by a court order that declared section 40 (3) of the County Governments Act unconstitutional. They can no longer impeach members of the executive committee whose hands are caught in the cookie jar.

Another challenge to accountability is the hostility by governors to oversight institutions. In the last parliament, COG took Senate to court on several occasions to prevent their members from appearing before the public accounts committee.

The High Court ruled that governors as chief executive officers have a responsibility to respond to audit queries.

They further recognized the right of Senate to summon governors or any other witness, but cautioned that summons should be used as a tool of last resort and should be exercised without malice, caprice or arbitrariness.

The issues raised above are surmountable. Senate must provide clarity, through legislation and regulations, on the boundaries of the concurrent oversight role they share with county assemblies.

Parliament must give the Auditor- General financial and operational muscle to conduct quality audits within time.

Senate and County Assemblies must take a more proactive approach to oversight. 

Send your nonperforming MCA Home!

Guided by the failure of leadership in successive governments, the drafters of the Constitution saw it wise to have a clause in the Constitution that would allow recalling of elected leaders. Article 104 states that elected leaders, Senators and MPs can be recalled. 

Moreover, electorates can also recall a Member of County Assembly (MCA).

The process of recalling is the same for all and what differs is the threshold that needs to be reached due to population dynamics in the respective leadership areas. For instance, it will take less people to sign signatures for removing an MCA and most for removing a Senator.

In this article, I focus on MCAs

Disqualification by law; 
As stipulated in Article 193(2) of the Constitution, one is disqualified from being elected a member of county assembly if the person;

1. Is a state officer or other public officer, other than a member of county assembly
2. Has at any time within the 5 years immediately before the date of election, held office as a member of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission. 
3. Has not been a citizen of Kenya for at least 10 years immediately preceding the dates of election. 
4. Is of unsound mind 
5. Is an undischarged bankrupt 
6. Is serving imprisonment sentence of at least 6 months 
7. Has been found, in accordance with any law, to have misused or abused a state office or public office or to have contravened chapter six (Article 193(2) of the Kenyan Constitution, 2010. 

Removal/ Recall of an MCA by law
The recall of a member of county assembly is done on the following grounds, if the member;

1. Is found, after due process of law, to have violated the provisions of chapter six of the constitution. 
2. Is found after due process of law to have mismanaged public resources. 
3. Is convicted of an offense under the Elections Act (No 24 of 2011). However, it is guarded by certain Conditions;

• It is only Initiated Upon a judgment of the High Court 
• It is only initiated 24 months after the Election and not twelve months preceding Election 
• It shall not be filed against a member more than once.
• A person who unsuccessfully contested in the election cannot initiate a petition under this section (Section 27(1) - (6) of The County Governments Act no 17 of 2012). 

Petition for Recall by voters under Article 104
A petition for recall shall be in wrtiing and filed with the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC). It shall be signed by a petitioner who;
 Is a voter in the ward
 Was registered to vote in that election and
 Be accompanied by a High Court Order.
However, this was changed by a court order of July 17th 2017. Under these new regulations, any petitioner can file this kind of petition as long as you are registered to vote anywhere in Kenya.

The petition shall;
a) Specify the ground which the recall is sought.
b) Contain a list of such number of names of voters which represent 30% of registered voters in that ward. The list shall contain names, address , voters’ card numbers. The voters shall represent diversity of the people in the ward. The commission shall verify the list within a period of thirty days of the receipt.
c) Include a fee prescribed for the petition
The commission if satisfied by the verification and process, within 15 days shall notify the speaker.
The commission shall carry out the recall election within ninety days of publication of question (Section 29(1-7) of The County Governments Act no 7 of 2012)

Vacation of Office of MCA 
It is prescribed in the constitution (Article 194 (1) (a-g) of the Kenyan Constitution, 2010) that an office may be declared vacant;
a) If the member dies
b) The member is absent for eight sittings without giving satisfactory reasons to the speaker.
c) If the member is removed from office under article 80 of the constitution.
d) If the member resigns in wring addressed to the speaker
e) In case of political party the member resigns and for an independent candidate the member joins a political party.
f) At the end of term of the assembly or
g) If the member is disqualified from the elections on grounds specified in 193(2).