The performance contracting and result based management system has streamlined the public service, by ensuring that everybody has their responsibilities and they are expected within particular time frames to be able to achieve results.
Director, Department of Public Communications, Mulei Muia, said that most of the senior officials in government are now on contract basis and if one doesn’t perform, their contracts are not renewed, which is a departure from the past where people were on Permanent and Pensionable terms, where even if they did not perform, they would still retain their jobs.
Muia who was representing the Broadcasting and Telecommunication Principal Secretary (PS), Esther Koimett, Thursday, at the KCA University during a public lecture, said that all workers in government have targets which they are expected to meet adding they are cascaded from the highest to the lowest levels of government.
“The government has evolved in its ways of doing things with more government services going online on platforms like e-citizen. Huduma centers spread across the country have revolutionized service delivery with Kenyans accessing services from the comfort of their homes,” he said.
Muia called on the public to utilize the Office of the Ombudsman, to report corrupt and lazy government workers.
The Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA) Chief Executive Officer, Carole Kariuki, said that the private sector forms a majority of those who consume government services and the efficiency or inefficiencies affect the cost of doing business.
Kariuki explained that the time it takes to start a business, the time it takes to complete transactions, the processes and cost involved in doing business, affects the price of consumer goods and services, because if the cost of doing business is high, the private sector passes that to the consumer.
“If I take one week to do something instead of two days, as a business, I will pass the cost of the extra days to the consumer and therefore it is very critical that government services are efficient in order to bring down the cost of living,” said Kariuki.
She explained that in 2014 Kenya was ranked 146 out of 180 in the ease of doing business and the President gave them a challenge that by 2020 Kenya should be in the top 50.
“We worked together with the Ministry of Trade and the World Bank and we decided to go to every area of government and see where the issues are. We started tackling the issues one by one and in 2020 despite the Covid-19 pandemic Kenya, was ranked 56 in the global index on the ease of doing business,” said Kariuki.
Jubilee Holdings Limited Regional, CEO Julius Kipngetich, said that clever government is a key ingredient in achieving sustainable growth and it has been lacking in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s), which is hampering their achievement as he suggested that he will write a seminal paper to advise on the same.
“you look at countries that have made a difference in the last 30 years, the likes of Singapore, South Korea, China, Dubai, among others, their central ingredient was clever leadership which managed to attract foreign capital, which ensured sustainable growth,” said Kipngetich.
He explained that when a country has an imprudent government or private sector the country suffers dire consequences.
Kipngetich explained that a shrewd government is one which has strong leadership, highlighting that lack of this key ingredient, is what has been driving Africa backwards.
“A clever government is one whose leaders mean well for the people and not after their own selfish interests. The central theme of countries that are lagging behind is corruption, where leaders see government as a place of personal enrichment,” said Kipngetich.
He explained that the same applies for the private sector, in that a company with corrupt leadership, will eventually collapse as has been witnessed in many companies which have shut down as a result of poor governance.
“We need to have responsible government which facilitates the private sector to grow and create job opportunities,” he said.
“On August 9th don’t elect unwise leaders because we will have injudicious government,” advised Kipngetich.
By Joseph Ng’ang’a
