APRM • SECOND COUNTRY REVIEW REPORT OF THE REPUBLIC OF KENYA 166. The issue of an over-bloated public service remains a major challenge, especially at the County government level, given its implication for the wage bill. As a result of poor transition planning, many County governments carried forward the burden of staff high on numbers but low in capacity from the pre-devolution period and invariably compounded this through fresh recruitments on their own. This practice of employing without the required establishments needs has understandably led to a situation in which recurrent needs tend to outstrip development expenditure in county government budgets. 167. Another important perception in this regard relates to the salience of partisan consideration and nepotism over and above merit and skills in the appointment into key offices at the political level in the national and county government levels, cascading into and distorting public service profiles. Even at the national level, the point is made that ministerial deployment often does not reflect competencies and skills. At the county level, it is also acknowledged that a sizeable number of the members of the various County Assemblies lack even the constitutional minimum educational qualifications for the positions. 168. Incursion of politics into such key functions as those of procurement and budgeting has also worked against the realisation of an effective and efficient public service. A common complaint relates to lack of full understanding of the budget and policy process by citizens who are required by the constitution to participate in governance. Such citizens often prioritise roads and health without fully appreciating other areas in which the public service could be required to act in the public interest. 169. Additionally, consultations across the counties highlighted the challenge of non-optimal consultation, collaboration and coordination between county commission officers and county government officials as the major impediment to service delivery, despite provisions in the constitution and appropriate legislations for such consultation, collaboration, cooperation and coordination. At one level, as indicated earlier, the recency of the devolution regime could be blamed for this situation. 3.7.2.2 Challenges 170. Some challenges have been appropriately highlighted in the CSAR while others have been identified. They include: • Organizational structure of government is in transition; there are some teething problems resulting from awareness of which public services are devolved or shared between county and national government; • Wage bill: despite efforts to reduce the high wage bill, it continues to be a challenge in the reform process; | 104 |