James is an expert in Public Finance, an experienced Certified Public Accountant – CPA (K) and a member of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya (ICPAK). He holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration (MBA) from the Eastern and Southern Africa Management Institute (ESAMI) and a Bachelor of Arts – Second Class Honours, upper-division – in Economics and Business Studies from Kenyatta University, Kenya.
He is currently the Commission Secretary / CEO, Commission on Revenue Allocation (CRA), a position he has held since March 2022. Before then he was the Director, Fiscal Affairs (2014-2022) and Director, Corporate Services (2012-2014) at the Commission.
In the current position, James is the leader and Accounting Officer of the Commission charged with implementing its constitutional mandate which includes:
- i. Making recommendations on the basis of sharing nationally raised revenue between the national and the county governments and among the county governments.
- ii. Making recommendations on matters concerning the financing of, and financial management by the county governments
- iii. Defining and enhancing the revenue sources for both the national and county governments.
- iv. Encouraging fiscal responsibility
- v. Determining, publishing and regularly reviewing the policy on marginalization
He is widely trained in Strategic Management, Leadership, Corporate Governance and Fiscal Decentralization. He is an alumnus of the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University where he undertook a course on Fiscal Decentralization, Local Governance and Service Delivery.
His experience spans over the last 32 years, seventeen of which have been at various levels of management in public organizations as well as international donor-funded research institutions. They include the International Centre for Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE), The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF), The Capital Markets Authority (CMA) and currently CRA.