Nairobi City Councillors in full cry at the mayoral elections at City Hall in Nairobi on August 3. Mayor Geoffrey Majiwa was re-elected. Picture: Stephen Mudiari
Violence in local government institutions is commonplace in the region, according to a study commissioned by Kenya’s City Hall Board of Trustees.
The study says theft of public coffers and political expediency informs most incidents of violent confrontation in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia.
Only Rwanda’s local government has broken with this tradition, following a process of national healing after the 1994 genocide.
“Councils in the region seem to have no strong dispute resolution mechanisms because most disputes invariably end with the intervention of the police,” says the study.
“The intensity of violence may differ but the fights are as vicious at City Hall in Nairobi as they are in Kampala.”
Unfortunately, just like in the other three countries spotlighted by the study, rarely is the violence informed by issues of importance but by petty ones ranging from mayoral elections and plots allocation, to who is to speak at a meeting, for how long and before whom, sitting arrangements, money, who is to chair committee meetings and so on.
According to the study which was published in the July/August edition of The Councillor, regional approaches to solving local council problems are based on the fact that most of the region’s local governments face similar challenges of funding, irrelevance, weak institutional structures and in fighting, but the similarity of perceptions on fighting is striking.
In Kenya, the latest fight, which attempted to evict immediate former town clerk John Gakuo from City Hall, is reported to have been ignited by a minor issue of disgruntled councillors who were unhappy with the allowances granted to them to attend the funeral of a colleague.
While the scale of violence in Kenya is said to have doubled after the year 2000 compared with he mid 1990s, Nairobi, Nakuru and Mombasa recorded the highest number of physical confrontations, with Kisumu recording the lowest, although this is attributed to the town having been led by a string of female councillors.
Responding to questions asked during the study, Kenya’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Local Government Musalia Mudavadi said fighting among officials in the local government distracts councils from the very reason they exist, which is to deliver services to the public.
“A democratic society requires that people convince each other with facts not blows,” said Mr Mudavadi. “resorting to violence is a serious failure of democracy. There are many peaceful ways to resolve differences, which include referring the contentious matter to a higher office — and if that fails there are always the courts.”
In Uganda, everyone is watching to see how the turf wars will play out in the next few years following the government’s proposal to parliament to upgrade Kampala to a cosmopolitan city under a nominated mayor.
Going by the present political intrigues, which have seen all the five division chairmen being accused of high-handed, arrogant and ignorant of procedures and protocols in carrying out council affairs, the feuds are likely to intensify as the five are said to be lobbying for their divisions to be upgraded to district level. This would automatically make them mayors, according to the current Ugandan constitution.
However, if the government goes ahead with plans to make Kampala a metropolis, it would mean that the possibility of creation of district wards would be by passed, giving way for a politically correct mayor to head Kampala.
This has not gone down well with the division chairmen, with most accusing councillors of sabotage and illiteracy.
“Those councillors are just illiterate and manipulated by external forces to sabotage my development efforts,” says Makindye Division chairman Karungi Moses. “In leadership, crossing paths is normal as everyone has their own interests.”
Meanwhile, constant friction between the executive arm of government and local councils over misuse of funds is an issue that stirs public curiosity in Tanzania.
Referring to the Warioba Commission report of 1996, the study says the regional and local government authority are institutions that keep whistleblowers vigilant, as corruption refuses to go away, especially in human resource management departments.
According to the report, bribery is most likely to occur during staff recruitment, promotions and redeployment, land allocation, issuing of business tenders and allocation of plots, as well as procurement of goods and services and revenue collection.
While the tradition of violence is expected to inform the political front among East African Local Government affairs as long as there are no reforms in governance in sight, Rwanda is the only country that has broken this tradition and is making impressive strides towards leadership by dialogue and consensus.
This was due to a policy change passed by the Government of National Unity of Rwanda in 1999, which decentralised power by creating local councils that would serve as the link between the government and the people.
So community co-ordinators, who are vested with powers equivalent to those of councillors in Kenya, were created and the offices occupied by people considered to be of high integrity and opinion leaders and role models in society.
They were then attached to all districts in the country and assigned the responsibility of nation-building through decentralised governance, phasing out council wars that marred the previous administration, which was tainted by nepotism.
For instance, every three months the Kigali City Council organises a Public Accountability Open Day where residents engage city council employees in a public forum that promotes public understanding of the institution’s work.
According to Dr Aisa Kirabo Kacyira, Mayor of Kigali, council employees are open to interrogation by citizens and are required to make public declarations about their performance, which is further open to public scrutiny.
“Councillors are the key leaders in the society and the population looks up to them as role models,” said Dr. Kacyira.
