In Federalism by any other name…: (SN: 12/6/2013) I said ‘I think that with the following statement by Mr. Ravi Dev, the discourse between us about the relevance of federalism to Guyana has come to an end. “In the post-WWII era, almost every country that has been forced to deal with plural societies have adopted federalist approaches. Most recently, after Kenya experienced severe inter-ethnic violence following their 2007 elections, they instituted constitutional changes …. They divided the country into 47 ‘counties’ and constitutionally mandated at least 15 per cent of national revenue be sent directly to the counties, giving local leaders greater authority in managing resources. Each county will have a County Executive headed by a county governor elected directly by the people and a county assembly elected with representatives from wards within the county’ (KN:02/06/2013).
In that article I observed that Kenya had some 41 ethnic groups and its 2010 constitution established 47 counties with clearly defined distribution of functions and resources between the national and county governments. However, (according to my reading) the national government had some 35 major functions while the counties were allocated 14 usual local government ones. I claimed that the tasks accorded to the counties ‘are too restrictive even for my understanding of radical devolution, and given his orientation, I am certain that Ravi would not object to their enhancement.’ I concluded the article by stating that: ‘For a form of devolution in an ethnically divided democratic society such as ours to be acceptable to me, all that is needed are mechanisms – preferably at the regional level – to
