Attorneys’ forum call for quick transition to create 47 county offices
The County Attorneys Forum is calling for a quick transition process to create offices of the attorneys in all 47 counties in accordance with the law.
So far the Forum has revealed that 10 to 12 counties have already transitioned and have offices of county attorneys while others are following suit in their respective counties.
President Uhuru Kenyatta signed into law the Office of the County Attorneys Act on July 9 which has seen the counties begin the transition process that is expected to play a major role in devolution.
Currently, the County attorneys are on a three-day retreat in Malindi at the Dream of Africa plan hotel whose theme is ‘’Robust Attorneys’ Offices for Effective Service Delivery.’’
Bibi Fondo, the chairperson of the forum said the retreat, the first for the county attorneys since the law was passed in July, was an eye-opener.
‘’This act elevated the county attorney to a member of the executive committee and for which we are very delighted,’’ she said.
Fondo said County Attorneys play a pivotal role in the implementation of the fourth schedule of the constitution in drafting laws for the county governments.
The CAF chairperson who is from Kilifi County emphasised the need for all county governments to have a county attorney during this period of transition.
“Right now the transition has begun I can see we have about 10 or 12 who have taken the oath of office, there are those who were already serving as officers as attorneys pursuant to their legislations passed in the county governments but nothing takes away from them from doing their work,” she said.
Fondo said the new law stamps the authority of those already working to continue doing their work though their positions has now been elevated to an executive committee member and will now be an independent office or department.
She said its the role of county attorneys now to put in place the necessary laws for purposes of enforcement.
The chairperson said issues to do with licensing of bars, restaurants and establishments that sell alcohol for example must e regulated and its the work of the county attorneys to establish the laws for enforcement to be done by the relevant departments.
“One of the things that you are going to see is robustness and a lot of publicity of the office of the county attorney because we are now a department, we will have committed budgets and resources to be able to do this work,’’ she said.
