More
than a decade after the advent of devolution, Kenya’s energy sector remains devolved
in law but predominantly centralized in practice. Constitutionally, County
Governments are mandated to undertake planning, electricity and gas
reticulation, and energy regulation.
Yet the financing, regulatory authority,
technical capacity and investment decisions needed to deliver these responsibilities
are controlled by National Entities. This raises a fundamental question: has
Kenya really devolved the energy sector, or has it merely transferred
responsibilities without the corresponding resources and power to act?
The
answer, unfortunately, is that key energy sector functions have not been
devolved to the County Governments. Although
the Energy Act of 2019 assigns Counties responsibilities in electrification,
energy planning and regulation, it largely preserves the sector’s centralized structure
and fails to provide resources to discharge those functions.
For instance, Counties
are expected to undertake county electrification, but the Act does not provide for a revenue-sharing mechanism within the
Rural Electrification Program Levy Fund.
Similarly,
while not exceeding one-half of one per cent on sales of electricity and
petroleum products is allocated to support the National Energy Regulator, no
corresponding funding is provided to Counties despite their Constitutional
regulatory mandate.
The disconnect between functions and financing has made
County energy responsibilities difficult to implement. This has directly
impacted local communities’ access to energy particularly in marginalized areas
where many lack connection to grid or have unreliable off grid systems that are
centrally managed.
Further,
the problem is compounded by the failure to distinguish National and County electricity
reticulation responsibilities. For instance, the Act assigns this function
concurrently to both levels of Government without defining where National
distribution should end and County reticulation should begin.
In practice,
National Entities continue to dominate the entire distribution chain, leaving
County Governments with little influence over network expansion, investment
priorities or local service delivery. Reforms to open the electricity
distribution to multiple players have been proposed but they have not been
implemented and still inadequately recognize the County role.
Even the existing
energy centres, which should support Counties in promoting renewable energy,
public awareness and community training, remain under National control.
These
institutional and financing gaps demonstrate that the central challenge is not
the absence of County mandates, but the failure to operationalize and demarcate
them. This necessitates establishment of a cooperative framework that gives
practical effect to the Constitutional assignment of functions.
The National
Government should retain the responsibility for policy development, electricity
generation, transmission, standards and regulation, while Counties should be
empowered and adequately financed to undertake local reticulation, develop
energy plans, enforce national regulations, promote decentralized energy
systems and support energy services aligned with local and national development
needs.
Ultimately,
Kenya will only have a fully devolved energy sector when authority, resources
and accountability move together. Without this, even the current push for
County Governments to develop County Energy Plans becomes a bureaucratic
exercise undertaken to satisfy statutory requirements rather than be an effective
tool for shaping national investments, expanding energy access and improving
the quality of energy services.
Written by Mary Mwiti, EBS – Chief Executive Officer,
Council of Governors.
