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Keywords
Archives, Records management, Kenya
Abstract
The Kenya National Archives and Documentation Services is seen as a success story by many other African archival institutions. The Department has made major strides in developing records services, opening five regional centres and partially automating most of its finding aids.
However, as this article indicates, major aspects of managing public sector records remain chaotic and regulations governing the management and disposal of public records are flouted by many Civil Servants. The article concludes by suggesting that the time has now come for the National Archives to focus on the management of the entire life cycle of records rather than managing only the archival preservation stage.
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Early history of Kenya National Archives
The Kenya National Archives and Documentation Services was first established by an Act of Parliament in 1965. Prior to that date colonial administration had operated a small archives repository in Nairobi. Musembi (1982a) argues that the failure to evolve an effective archives service in the country can be attributed to lack of interest by colonial administrators. Nathan Fedha, the first African archivist, who succeeded Derek Charman in 1964 as Chief Archivist in Kenya, continued in Charman's footsteps and nothing major happened except the collection of district and provincial records. Fedha was replaced by Dr Maina Kagombe in 1974. During Kagombe's period, the Kenya National Archives underwent a period of uncontrolled growth, and its responsibilities came to include a wide range of non-archival functions (Walford, 1982a, p. 1). Ian Maclean, an Australian records management expert who spent six months in Kenya as a Unesco consultant in 1978, was:
... astonished at the number and range of objectives and programmes postulated by the Chief Archivist for the Kenya National Archives (Maclean, 1978, p. 4).
He noted that, apart from conventionally accepted public archives and records management functions, the Chief Archivist had envisaged programmes for the retrieval of migrated archives, collection of oral traditions, the preservation of the freedom tree, establishment of a documentation centre, a programme for the preservation of sites and monuments and the establishment...