12th National and County Governments Coordinating Summit

Date: 10 December 2025

Venue: State House, Nairobi

Speaker Identification

• Master of Ceremonies / Protocol Officer
• Principal Secretary Michael Salaton (State Department for Devolution)
• President William Ruto (Chair of the Summit)
• Governor Ahmed Abdullahi (Chair, Council of Governors)
• Deputy President Prof. Kithure Kindiki (Chair, Intergovernmental Budget and Economic Council – IBEC)

Opening Protocol and Attendance

Master of Ceremonies / Protocol Officer

Thank you, Your Excellency the President of the Republic of Kenya and the Chair of the Summit. With all protocols established, I wish Your Excellency to acknowledge for purposes of noting in the record the presence of Your Excellency Governors, 36 in number.

I wish also in the same spirit to acknowledge the apologies received from Excellency Governor for Nyeri and Excellency Governor for Kwale.

In the same spirit, Your Excellency, we wish also to acknowledge the presence of the Cabinet Secretaries, eight in number, led by the Prime Cabinet Secretary. We also have Your Excellency Principal Secretaries led by the PS for the State Department for Devolution.

Then Your Excellency, to acknowledge those in attendance from the constitutional commissions:

• Controller of Budget led by Dr. Margaret Nyakang’o
• Commission on Revenue Allocation led by the Chair Madame Mary Wanyonyi
• Public Service Commission led by Vice Chair Madame Mercy Kimani
• National Land Commission led by CEO Madame
• Salaries and Remuneration Commission led by the Chair Mr. Sami
• KERRA represented
• Equalization Fund represented by CEO Dr.
• CEO for Social Health Authority
• CEO for KETRACO and other CEOs and PSs whose agenda items are appearing either as matters arising or in the substantive agenda.

I also wish to acknowledge Your Excellency the presence of the CEO for Council of Governors Mary Mwiti with the secretariat and all senior officers from the state departments.

Your Excellency, the attendance is as constituted. Your Excellency, I submit. Thank you.

At this point, I would now call on Honourable Michael Salaton, Principal Secretary, State Department for Devolution, to read the statutory citation.

Statutory Citation Confirming Quorum

Principal Secretary Michael Salaton

Your Excellency the President of the Republic of Kenya and Chairman of the Summit, Honourable Dr. William Samoei Ruto,

The Deputy President of the Republic of Kenya, His Excellency Honourable Professor Kithure Kindiki,

The Chairperson of the Council of Governors and Vice Chairperson of the Summit, His Excellency Honourable Ahmed Abdullahi,

Honourable members of the Summit, all protocols observed.

Ladies and gentlemen, Article 6(2) of our Constitution states that the governments at the national and county levels are distinct and interdependent and should conduct their mutual relations on the basis of consultation and cooperation. This obligates the national and county governments to conduct their business on the basis of consultation, coordination and cooperation.

This requirement is further emphasized in Article 189 of the Constitution which requires the national and county governments to cooperate in the performance of their functions and exercise of powers.

The National and County Government Coordination Summit, which is the Summit, is the apex body for intergovernmental relations and is established under Section 7 of the Intergovernmental Relations Act Cap 265F, which further stipulates the membership of the Summit. The conduct of the meetings of the Summit is guided by the provisions of Section 9 and the Fifth Schedule to the Intergovernmental Relations Act Cap 265F.

Your Excellency the President and members of the Summit, I have perused the various provisions of law relating to the convening and holding of meetings of the Summit and wish to state that the Summit convened today, the 10th December 2025, is legally convened and has the requisite quorum. The Summit may therefore proceed to conduct its business. Thank you.

I now respectfully invite His Excellency the President and the Chair of the Summit to take over and preside over the 12th National and County Government Coordinating Summit. Sir.

Opening Remarks and Order of Proceedings

President William Ruto

Mr Deputy President, distinguished Governors, Cabinet Secretaries, other public officials, ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Jambo.

I think before we go into the substantive agenda, I will ask the Chair of the Council of Governors to make some brief remarks to set the tone of the meeting.

Then the Deputy President as the Chair of IBEC can make some brief comments, and then I have some short comments to make, and then we can go into the substantive agenda. I don’t know whether that is okay. I suggest that we proceed in that manner. Chairman.

Remarks by the Chair of the Council of Governors

Governor Ahmed Abdullahi (Chair, Council of Governors)

Thank you very much.

Your Excellency the President and the Chair of the Summit, Dr. William Samoei Ruto,

Your Excellency the Deputy President,

Your Excellency the Prime Cabinet Secretary,

My colleague Governors, Cabinet Secretaries, Chairs of Commissions, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, good morning.

It is an honour to join you for the 12th National and County Governments Coordinating Summit, our foremost constitutional platform for dialogue, collaboration and shared stewardship of Kenya’s governance and development agenda.

Allow me Your Excellency to appreciate your unwavering commitment to cooperative governance. This is how our system of devolution continues to mature through structured consultation, candour and mutual responsibility.

Today’s agenda reflects a strong emphasis on institutional accountability, policy alignment and effective execution of our shared mandates. The Council welcomes the presentation of the IGRTC report and the proposed framework for reporting on legislative bodies and the draft Summit report, which are central to ensuring we implement Summit decisions.

Your Excellencies, the tabling of the draft IG regulations is timely. For a decade we have operated without comprehensive regulations to guide intergovernmental structures below the Summit. These regulations will clarify roles, processes and coordination mechanisms, particularly at the level of intergovernmental sector forums, county intergovernmental forums and technical working mechanisms. The Council will provide position and views on a few governance issues to ensure that these regulations enhance, and not whittle down, the spirit of cooperative governance as envisaged in the Constitution.

I wish to commend the various intergovernmental sector forums that exist and that are doing commendable work. I wish however to note that there is need to have sector forums outside the devolved function areas, including security and foreign affairs. These functions are primarily assigned to the national government but have an impact on devolution as well.

Your Excellency, we appreciate the continued efforts by the National Treasury to stabilise the share disbursement schedule. However, there remain critical issues requiring Summit direction: SHA reimbursements, Road Maintenance Levy Fund, costing of devolved functions, and the passage of the County Governments Additional Allocation Act, among others.

The constitutional architecture of devolution thrives where there is mutual respect, fidelity to the law, and shared responsibility in delivering quality services to Kenyans. This Summit symbolises that partnership.

On behalf of the 47 governments, I wish to reaffirm our commitment to national unity, equitable development and the principles of cooperative governance. We stand ready to work with all national institutions represented here today to advance the constitutional vision of a prosperous, inclusive and devolved Kenya.

Thank you, and I look forward to the discussions ahead. Thank you, Excellency.

Invitation to Deputy President

Remarks by the Deputy President

Deputy President Prof. Kithure Kindiki

Your Excellency President William Ruto, all colleagues, ladies and gentlemen.

We gather here today as the devolution family to have conversations on how to take our country forward.

Mr President, through the delegated assignment you have given me, I have been able to oversee during the past year activities of IBEC. I have also been able to follow the deliberations that have taken place in other institutions and structures of devolution.

I just need to make two points, Your Excellency, before inviting you to chair this meeting.

One: we have come a long way in implementing devolution — from early situations of struggle, tension and misunderstandings (which were expected at the beginning) to where we are today, where the two levels of government, independent offices and commissions have an ongoing conversation. Whenever issues arise, as they should all the time, the channels of communication, collaboration, mutual respect and mutual support exist.

Therefore, Your Excellency, as you preside over this Summit, I expect that we will be able to resolve the matters before us and those that perhaps need to be delegated to other structures of devolution.

The second and last comment I want to make, Your Excellency, is my observation that we have done well but we could do better. One of the areas where I think we need to improve is on

operationalising the workings of subordinate structures of devolution so as to retain the Summit as the highest policy-directing organ of the Republic of Kenya in matters devolution.

I have experienced and observed that, for example, the sector forums which are established by law and which are supposed to converse matters devolution at sector level — roads and transport, health, agriculture and so forth — in the sectors where the sector forums are convened regularly, most of the issues have been dealt with and many issues have been resolved without them having to be referred to the Summit.

I want particularly to commend the Health Sector Forum, followed by the Agriculture Sector Forum, and in the same vein encourage all the other sector forums. As we discussed and passed in the last all sector forums must operate optimally and regularly.

We have taken the decision, Your Excellency, during the pre-Summit meeting which was held on 27th of October 2025, that we will spare the Summit from operational issues that can be dealt with by either IBEC or other structures of devolution, including sector forums where the two levels of government are efficiently and optimally represented.

I therefore want to call upon the sector forums that are not operational to do so effective January so that going forward we spare the Summit for policy direction on issues that cannot be resolved at other levels — and the rest of the time we can spend bonding and taking photographs and encouraging ourselves to work together going forward as opposed to coming here to deal with operational routine issues from one sector to another.

With those many remarks, Your Excellency, I want to reaffirm my commitment to support you as you help run our country, and I am grateful to the Council of Governors through Chair Ahmed Abdullahi and the team for the support they continue to give me as your Deputy in the running of IBEC and also in the running of other matters devolution.

I want to single out in a particular way Chairpersons and Heads of independent offices and commissions who have also shown maximum support not only to the Council of Governors but also to my office in the delegated assignments that have been doing Your Excellency to support you as you lead our country to affirm support and operationalise to the fullest extent possible this crown jewel called devolution in our Constitution.

With those many remarks, Your Excellency, it is my pleasure to request you to take over, address the meeting and also run the meeting for the remainder of the time. Thank you, Your Excellency.