APRM • SECOND COUNTRY REVIEW REPORT OF THE REPUBLIC OF KENYA • Public concern over the number of elected and appointed leaders in the county system; • Tendency of grassroots leaders in the executive branch, and more so in the council assemblies, to lack capacity and to focus more on partisan politics than on economic and social development; • Need for leadership type that puts people and policy first and is not self-serving. 86. Reports of instances of frustration of public participation in governance at policymaking as well as policy implementation, monitoring and feedback levels. Despite all this, sentiments across the counties indicate a desire to see devolution succeed, emphasizing the need for political will among national and local leaders as well as local buy-in and ownership among the people in this regard. A welcome trend here relates to a generally appropriate level of cooperation and collaboration at the intra-governmental and inter-governmental levels in county government, powered by relevant non-partisan institutional frameworks in planning, budgeting and programme. For instance, there was evidence of capacity building assistance from the National Assembly to County Assemblies, as well as similar collaboration between the Kenya Revenue Agency and some counties over local revenue collection at the county level as voluntarily agreed to by the concerned counties. Of course, there was also evidence of schism, as one between Senators and County Governments over procurement processes. There is also effective collaboration between the Senate and the National Assembly in the National Legislature. 87. At the national level, exceptions were noticed to the general impression that the strengthening of institutions in the context of the 2010 constitution has generally had positive impact on governance and the rule of law. Such exceptions recorded at public forums identified the Police Service, the judiciary (often blamed for taking too long to hear cases, leading to a backlog of such cases, and for corruption), the parliament (occasionally blamed for interfering in judicial matters, and for performing its duties in manners that privilege members’ private interests over and above the public interest), the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission in light of perception of widespread corruption in government, and the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission. 88. Findings, however, indicate that much of the public condemnation of some of these agencies emanate from a failure of the bodies to appropriately communicate their activities to members of the public. For instance, consultations with the Police Service Commission showed that the Commission is as concerned as members of the public with widespread allegations of corruption long levied against police personnel and even concedes that some of such allegations have been proved to be true and such cases have been promptly processed up to the level of the Director of Public Prosecution. However, the Commission is at the moment in a planned transition from being called a Force to being called a Service, with all attendant engineering for better and more ethical performance at the institutional and personnel levels. The Commission is currently conducting life-time audit on police personnel that will take some time, starting with the Traffic Department on to the Directorate of Criminal Investigation and so on. | 80 |