Uhuru Kenyatta's second term (2017-2022) saw devolution stagnate rather than flourish, revealing the institutional, financial, and political limitations of Kenya's 2010 constitutional experiment in power-sharing between national and county governments. While Uhuru and Devolution addresses devolution broadly, the second-term period was characterized by deepening dysfunction between national and county governments, with Uhuru's administration frequently asserting central authority over constitutionally devolved functions and failing to resolve the structural financing gaps that constrained county service delivery.
The second term witnessed numerous instances of the national government reasserting control over county-level functions. Infrastructure projects, particularly roads and water systems that were nominally county responsibilities, were recentralized under national government coordination, effectively reducing county autonomy. This pattern reflected Uhuru's skepticism about county-level governance capacity and his preference for centralizing control in ways that contradicted constitutional devolution principles.
Equitable resource distribution between the national and county governments remained contentious throughout Uhuru's second term. Counties consistently underfunded, particularly after the 2019 census forced recalibrations of devolution revenue allocations, struggled to deliver basic services. Primary health centers deteriorated, county roads remained potholed and dangerous, and county-run water systems provided sporadic service. Rather than increasing county fiscal allocation shares, Uhuru's government maintained austerity policies that starved counties of resources while simultaneously centralizing expenditure authority.
Devolution's greatest failure in Uhuru's second term was its inability to improve service delivery or reduce regional inequality. Counties nominally controlled education, healthcare, agriculture, and water provision—the core service delivery functions that most directly impact citizen welfare. Yet by 2022, these services had deteriorated measurably in many counties, suggesting that devolution without adequate resources and capable institutions merely decentralized dysfunction rather than enabling effective governance.
By the end of Uhuru's presidency, devolution had become another unfulfilled constitutional promise, with counties performing poorly on service delivery and the relationship between national and county governments defined by competition over resources rather than complementary cooperation.
See Also
Uhuru and Devolution County Governments Under Devolution Fiscal Federalism Kenya Service Delivery Under Devolution Central-Local Government Relations County Revenue and Finance