- Governors are up in about a bid seeking to block county governments from outsourcing legal services despite having fully established legal departments.
- Appearing before the Senate committee currently considering a petition seeking to bar them from hiring external lawyers, they urged the Senate to dismiss the petition.
Image: STEPHEN ASTARIKO
Governors are up in arms over a plan to block county governments from outsourcing legal services.
Counties have been on the spot for paying billion in legal fees to lawyers despite having fully established legal departments within the devolved units.
Appearing before the Senate committee currently considering a petition seeking to bar them from hiring external lawyers, the county bosses urged the Senate to dismiss the petition.
Council of Governors vice-chairperson Ahmed Abdullahi said the counties face various obstacles in hiring highly qualified lawyers.
He explained that legal counsels in counties are remunerated below their counterparts at the Office of the Attorney General and Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions despite being in the same job group.
As such, he argued, the pay disparity makes it difficult for county governments to attract top talent in the legal field to handle all legal matters without hiring private firms.
“Getting a staff with highly qualified lawyers is not easy because of the low remuneration as the county attorney is paid as a CEC while the others are paid way less than their counterparts in the national government,” Abdullahi said.
He added that county governments are independent entities that can make reasonable judgments to know when they need to hire external expertise, not only in the legal field.
“We should think of a way of reducing the outsourcing but not do it in a way of curtailing the independence of counties to run their operations,” the Wajir governor said.
“I want senators to think about what could happen if this House was barred from outsourcing highly qualified lawyers for a matter in court concerning them,” he added.
CoG’s chief executive officer Mary Mwiti said outsourcing currently happens only in complex cases or in areas where counties think external legal expertise is highly needed.
“There has been a drastic reduction in outsourcing of legal services since 2017 due to enhanced capacity in legal departments in counties,” Mwiti said.
They appeared before the joint committee of Justice and Legal Affairs, and Devolution and Intergovernmental Relations that is considering the petition.
In the petition, the petitioner, Grassroots Civilian Oversight Initiative executive director Laban Omusundi, wants the Senate to pass legislation to bar counties from outsourcing legal services.
However, in what could trigger a clash between the governors and the senators, the lawmakers backed the petition.
They raised concerns over the exorbitant expenditure on legal fees by county governments where most payments worth billions are made to external lawyers “with connections to some top county officers”.
The move follows concerns about Sh23 billion paid to various law firms ahead of the 2022 polls.
This is compared to Sh1.2 billion paid in the previous fiscal year and Sh1.4 billion in the year after the elections.
Currently, the counties are grappling with legal pending bills amounting to Sh56 billion with Nairobi leading with Sh21 billion.
It is followed by Murang’a with Sh343 million, and Embu with Sh327 million.
The lawmakers alleged that legal fees have been turned into avenues of pilfering taxpayers’ money in counties.
The senators want such cases to be handled by county attorneys, arguing counties are not getting value for money through engaging external advocates at inflated terms yet end up losing most of the cases.
Senate Justice and Legal Affairs Committee chairperson Hillary Sigei said only three counties should still be allowed to outsource for external legal services.
They are Lamu, Tana River and Elgeyo Marakwet which are yet to establish offices of county attorneys.
“You do not need to go to school to see the expensive nature of engagement of external legal services by counties. This is a misuse of authority that the counties have,” he said.
Devolution and Intergovernmental Relations Committee chairperson Abass Mohamed said a way must be found to contain the runaway cost of outsourcing external legal services by counties.
He said the huge pending bills are a worry, expressing concern as to why the devolved units are not able to recruit the expertise of highly qualified lawyers.
“There is no way you will convince me that county lawyers cannot handle the cases and you must outsource the services of external lawyers,” the Wajir Senator said.