A week after the Cabinet approved the merging of unproductive government agencies, Attorney-General Dorcas Agik Oduor has chaired a meeting to resolve pending legal matters that inhibit implementation of government programmes.

Oduor convened a meeting with heads of 12 Semi-Autonomous Government Agencies (SAGAs) under her office on Monday at which she pointed out Agriculture, Social Health Insurance Fund (SHIF), Small and Medium Enterprises and the war on corruption as some of the key areas that President William Ruto has keen interest in.

Agencies under the AG’s office include National Legal Aids Service (NLAS), Kenya School of Law (KSL), Council of Legal Education (CLE), Kenya Law Reform Commission (KLRC), Auctioneering Licensing Board (ALB) and Nairobi Centre for International Arbitration (NCIA).

It also comprises Business Registration Service (BRS), National Anti-Corruption Campaign Steering Committee (NACCSC), Assets Recovery Agency (ARA), Witness Protection Agency, Victims Protection Board and National Council for Law Reporting.

Oduor emphasised the need for all agencies domiciled in the office of AG must step up and support all the government programmes in line with Ruto’s Bottom Up Economic Agenda (Beta) strategy.

For SHIF the President has directed the AG to support the rollout of Taifa care despite the glaring glitches that it has caused to patients some of whom have been forced to pay out of their pockets to access healthcare in government hospitals.

“All our agencies are supposed to support Tarifa Care is our national health care insurance. And where it’s working, we’re supposed to speak out. Where it has failed, we’re also supposed to speak out,” Oduor told the officials.

Lying idle

The AG also singled out the Business Registration Service Bureau as one of the agencies with ‘assets lying idle’ yet they could be used to grow the SME sector.

“We are called upon that whatever we do, for example, the Business Registration Bureau we have assets that are supposed to be helping people to develop themselves, yet they have no access to it. Then we should ask ourselves, are we really helping these people to develop?” she said.

Oduor revealed that her office has finalized reviewing the Anti-Corruption Act, and the Witness Protection Act, and is now formulating the Business Laws Act to tackle corruption among government employees.

“You can hear people saying that you have to pay this to get this, you have to pay this to get this (from government agencies). We can no longer just say that it’s business as usual. The war on corruption is going to be enhanced and it will start with us,” she clarified.

Each agency, the AG said is supposed to have an internal mechanism that is provided for under the Anti-Corruption Act, must carry out risk assessment and put internal mitigating tools to fight corruption.

“You’re supposed to have some anonymous media, more authoritative, where people within your organisation, however small they are, even a messenger, can have a place to report what is happening. Because if you don’t have that, and you’re waiting for the head of department to report to you during the head of department meeting, you might miss something,” she said.

She directed the SAGA officials to embrace technology by incorporating social media and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in their operations so that the public can be enlightened on the functions of each of the agencies.

“We no longer need big offices and a lot of human resources. With technology and AI, there is a way that we can become effective and efficient,” she said.

But even as Oduor read the riot acts to officials under her office, they confronted her with a myriad of challenges that have brought some of the agencies to their knees.

Underfunding

Majority of the institution heads narrated how persistent underfunding by the National Treasury has crippled their service delivery to the public and have relied on the goodwill of donors.

The worst hit agencies include the Council of Legal Education (CLE) and Kenya School of Law (KSL) which are mulling at increasing fees charges despite the risk of acrimony among the students, a majority in the Gen Z age- all popular with anti-government protests.

KSL Chief Executive Officer Henry Mutai said that his institution is no longer able to offer loans to students due to budget cuts nor can the school provide learning material.

“This year buying no books, zero books at all. Our online subscriptions to the library, again, we’ve had to cancel many of them because we do not have money. In my email, I’m getting people saying that they are not able to afford to pay even the deposit to come and join the school. So a lot of students are being affected,” Mutai said.

CLE Chairman Collins Odote narrated how he regretted increasing fees for students undertaking the Advocates Training Programme (ATP) examination. Odote said that though his decision not to increase the fees paid off as Gen Z, the majority of the candidates, protests started a week later, six months later, he is regretting the decision.

“With zero resources, the only money we have is money we get from students. Our budget has been reduced by 50 per cent. Unfortunately, in the current environment, we cannot offer the April, ATP exams,” he said

The Solicitor General Shadrack Mose however cautioned officials from increasing fees charged to students adding that the government will disburse money to fund the operations that they highlighted.

Space and infrastructure

The AG to the head of SAGAs to capitalize on the space and infrastructure which her office established in 28 counties across the country in order to offer their services to more Kenyans.

Meanwhile, Oduor defended the government for withholding some of the functions that were supposed to be moved to the counties citing the complexity of the transfer process and lack of funds

“Some of these functions were supposed to be transferred. But because of the complexity of some of these functions, the amount of money that they need and the expertise that they need there has been a process,” she said.

“So it is not that the national government has refused to transfer. It is a process. And when you are transferring a function, you must make sure that it is going to be impactful.”

We are now working on transferring the rest but it will take time. Because as much as the counties want some functions to be transferred to them, they have to employ and they must have expertise. Now you find that most of the people that they employ are students who are in the national government.