Regulation as struggle for jurisdictional and maximal power: evidence from the reform strategy of Kenya’s regulator of engineering practice

ABSTRACT This paper reviews the political thinking as embedded in the text of the statute constituting the regulation of the engineering profession in Kenya. It specifically focuses on the regulator’s political strategy of consolidation of jurisdictional power and its concentration of regulatory power. Jurisdictional strategies include expansion into the working environment of engineers, attempts to control engineering schools, criminalisation of employment of non-registered engineers, elimination of competition by declaring the statute supreme over others and non-inclusion of the public interest representatives on the board. Regulatory strategies involved the inclusion of principal secretaries on the board, pursuit of financial security by creating a variety of sources, seeking to invest budgetary surplus and retention of legislative powers. The research concludes that the regulator is a narrow interest group interested in power and money rather than the public interest.