Attorney General Justin Muturi is seeking to establish an Office of the Attorney General at county level to devolve services.

At the same time, the AG has raised questions over the shortage of legal officers in his office, saying this has continued to derail service delivery.

Muturi said the understaffing was unacceptable and called for more officers to be recruited.
“It’s true there is a shortage of legal officers, we have a crisis of understaffing, and this has continued to pile pressure on the little officers, we are slightly below half of the establishment, that was lastly done in 2020,”said Muturi.

Speaking in Mombasa on the sidelines of the ongoing commonwealth Association of legislative council (CALC) Africa meeting, Muturi said the situation is so dire that one officer attends to over 400 files per year.

Human resources

“Those that I have can’t even reach halfway the number we need, I am recommending that the human resources we need must be of top notch,” he added, noting that the last time the matter was addressed was in 2020.

In Mombasa for example, he said, there is a deficit of over 30 judicial officers. He however expressed hopes that the matter will be amicably solved after a cabinet approved establishment of devolved offices.
“Three months ago I got a cabinet approval to establish in every county the office of the attorney general, its constitutional, the office of the attorney general must devolve, so I’mbeginning to roll out,” said Muturi.