Disquiet has unsettled civil servants as the national government moves to release all devolved functions to county governments.
The Star has established that civil servants who work in departments and agencies that perform roles earmarked for transfer are apprehensive.
The lot fear losing their jobs, control of billions of shillings currently at their disposal and disruption of the comfort they have enjoyed for decades.
Counties will take over functions with a budget of Sh272 billion.
They have been complaining that the national government is clinging onto the functions.
In November last year, the Intergovernmental Relations Technical Committee (IGRTC) gazetted of 65 functions for release to the counties, after more than 10 months stakeholder engagement.
They include health, forestry, mining, video shows and hiring, cinemas, racing, betting, casinos and other forms of gambling, water and sanitation services, street lighting, county abattoirs and fisheries extension services.
Others are plant disease control, animal husbandry, refuse removal, refuse dumps and solid waste disposal, veterinary services (excluding regulation of the profession) and ambulance services.
However, the notice was immediately withdrawn after protests by the ministries, departments and agencies that were to surrender the functions.
“The gazette notice was recalled for the purposes of ensuring we bring everybody on board,” Devolution PS Teresia Mbaika said.
Major functions, their staff and budgets, will be transferred to counties which might be overwhelmed.
The IGRTC is spearheading transfer of functions that were still being performed from the centre.
It has completed validation of the functions with various stakeholders and is filing a report for ratification to the National and County Government Coordinating Summit.
Ratification will pave the way for the gazettement of the functions for their transfer to the counties.
“The President had given us 60 days to make sure all pending devolved functions are transferred to counties and we shall meet that by the end of February,” IGRTC chairperson Kithinji Kiragu said.
Already, the government has released library functions – including personnel, a budget for their salaries and assets worth billions of shillings to the devolved units.
All the 61 libraries in 33 counties have been transferred in what has virtually rendered the Kenya National Library Services (KNLS) moribund.
The KNLS service board and secretariat has only retained its headquarters in Nairobi.
“As KNLS, we want to assure the counties that we shall not be a stumbling block to devolution. We have released all the libraries to counties,” CEO Charles Nzivo said.
He, however, denied concerns the agency has remained a shell.
The CEO said KNLS will develop policies and train counties to effectively run the libraries.
“We will not rest. We will see to it that our children grow well. We are especially going to start with 14 counties that do not have libraries,” Nzivo said.
The government has also started the transfer of 25 museums to county governments.
Culture and Heritage PS Ummi Bashir said 25 museums, national monuments and gazetted sites are set for transfer to county governments.
“We have started with seven counties but the negotiations are going on with the others,” she said.
However, the process will not affect Unesco heritage sites like Fort Jesus.
Other counties set to take over museums are Wajir, Narok, Garissa, Isiolo and Marsabit.
“We are officially transferring the museum of Trans Nzoia on 33 hectares [ 81 acres] because we are implementing what is stated in the Fourth Schedule of the Constitution,” she said.
The IGRTC, however, sought to allay fears of job losses, saying all the affected staff will be moved to the counties.
“There should be no panic. What is going to change is only the employer. Otherwise their salaries and all benefits will remain intact,” Kiragu said.
IGRTC member Linet Mavu said the process involves transfer of functions, resources–human and financial–as well as assets to the counties.
“Why should people panic? Even if these functions go to counties they are still going to be performed by people. And they are the same people we are also releasing to counties,” Mavu said.
The report reveals the Ministry of Health and agencies under it, are performing 45 elements of the health function that exclusively belongs to counties. “Four other elements of the function have been identified and unbundled as concurrent to be transferred to the counties,” the report states.
The health functions have a budget of Sh3.2 billion.
“The county governments have been assigned exclusive functions, which do not require co-sharing of responsibilities with the national government,” IGRTC’s Kiragu said.
In education, IGRTC has identified 52 elements and unbundled them as exclusive to the county governments, recommending their transfer.
“The national government is restricted to education policy, standards, curricula and examinations. Implementation is a mandate of the county governments,” the report says.
However, the report was disputed by some agencies because of job loss fears and loss of billions of shillings in the functions cited for the disagreement.
In December, President William Ruto gave the IGRTC two months to engage all stakeholders to avert a looming clash and court battles over the functions.
“Accordingly, I have instructed IGRTC to thoroughly engage all relevant stakeholders to avoid conflicts and acrimonious litigation in court,” he said.
The head of state spoke during the National and County Governments Summit held at State House in December last year.