Kenyatta made clear his desire for Kenya to become a one-party state, regarding this as a better expression of national unity than a multi-party system. In the first five years of independence, he consolidated control of the central government, removing the autonomy of Kenya's provinces to prevent the entrenchment of ethnic power bases. He argued that centralised control of the government was needed to deal with the growth in demands for local services and to assist quicker economic development. In 1966, it launched a commission to examine reforms to local government operations, and in 1969 passed the Transfer of Functions Act, which terminated grants to local authorities and transferred major services from provincial to central control.