• The National Treasury, the University of Embu and President Uhuru's Kenyatta's State House have been ranked the best in performance by a government report.
• The report by the Public Service Performance Management also reports Peter Munya's Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries is the worst performer.
Image: PSCU
The National Treasury, the University of Embu and President Uhuru's State House have been ranked the best in service delivery by a new government report.
The report by the Public Service Performance Management also reveals Peter Munya's Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries is the worst performer.
The report ranks government ministries, departments and agencies on the implementation of the performance contracts.
Treasury CS Yukur Yatani's ministry posted the best score of 3.0209 to top the list.
The report for the 2019-20 financial year showed overall the performing sectors of Education emerged the best with a score of 3.2018. Those under the Ministry of Agriculture and Urban Development coming last with 3.7293.
On the performance of state corporations and tertiary institutions, agencies under the Ministry of Health emerged the best with a score of 3.0597, while those under the national security sector were the worst with 3.8049 points.
The report looked at criteria including performance of the core mandate, which evaluates operational performance, absorption of externally mobilised funds and resources allocated by the Treasury.
Other indicators include projects' completion rate, access to government procurement opportunities, youth internships and corruption prevention measures.
The University of Embu topped in the performance of the core mandate, with an index of 0.9802 among state corporations. Those in the office of the Attorney General topped in the ministries category with 1.7965 points.
Public Service Cabinet Secretary Margaret Kobia said the far-reaching austerity measures and budget cuts as well as the Covid-19 pandemic affected the performance of MDAs.
"That notwithstanding, the MDAs have continued to deploy performance contracting as one of the performance management tools in achieving their annual performance targets and ultimately their respective mandates," she said.
The report shows out of the 21 ministries, State House, OP, Office of the DP and that of the AG, none attained 'Excellent' performance grade or 'Very Good.
According to the report, a total of 20 MDAs achieved 'Good' status while four of them achieved 'Fair' performance, according to the report which looked at 366 MDAs.
State House, which had 3.0415 came second, with the Ministry of East Africa and Regional Development getting position three after scoring 3.0920 points.
The office of the Attorney General and the department of justice came in position four with 3.1398 while the Ministry of Water, Sanitation and Irrigation completed the best top five ministries with 3.100.
At the bottom, the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries posted 3.9491 followed by the Ministry of ICT and Youth Affairs, which had 3.7568.
The Ministry of Sports and Culture posted 3.544 to emerged at the bottom three, while the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife closed the bottom four list with 3.6999 points.
Of the 223 state corporations whose performance was evaluated, five attained the 'Excellent' grade, 51 of them scored the 'Very Good', 141 recorded 'Good' performance, 19 'Fair' while seven posted 'Poor'.
Of the top 10 best state corporations, four scored 'Excellent', while six were 'Very Good'.
The University of Embu was the best performing State Corporation with 2.1250 points followed by Tharaka University College with a performance of 2.1791 as the ranking showed that five public universities were among the best 10 corporations.
The TVET Curriculum Development and Assessment came third with 2.2587 points as the University of Nairobi came fourth with a performance of 2.2621.
The National Irrigation Authority was in position five with 2.3539, followed by Chuka University (2.4085), Kenya Industrial Estates (2.4459), South Eastern Kenya University (2.5738), Capital Markets Authority (2.5996) and the Media Council of Kenya closed the top 10 list with 2.6148.
Overall, the report noted a decline in the performance of ministries, agencies and state departments in the 2019-20 financial year with the average composite score falling from 3.3816 to 3.3920.
Comparatively, four state corporations that posted poor results in the 2018/2019 financial year continue to perform dismally and are still among the bottom ten in the 2019/2020 period.
They include the East African Portland Cement that had a composite score of 4.0575, South Nyanza Sugar limited (4.0698), Tana Water Works Development Agency (4.0763) and Chemelil Sugar which posted a score of 4.3195.
In the category of the bottom ten, the giant Kenya Airports Authority was the last one with 3.8863, Kenya Cultural Centre had 4. 0610, Kenya Meat Commission with 4.0993 points and the School Equipment Production Unit posted 4.1465 points.
According to the report, the non-approval for contractor master list duty, VAT exemption for key infrastructural projects under the core mandate and special user licences by Kenya Forestry Services affected the rating of the Tana Water Works Development Agency.
Regarding East Africa Portland Cement, the poor performance in the core mandate criteria was largely due to inadequate working capital, deteriorating plant health, and constrained clinker and cement production.
The best performing functional category were public universities that posted 3.0312 points followed by financial (3.0962), Regulatory (3.1518), Regional Development Authorities (3.1605), Service (3.2033), Training and Research (3.2130) with commercial and manufacturing institutions coming last with 3.5166 points.
On the Tertiary Institutions category, which largely falls under the Ministry of Education, Nairobi Technical Training Institute came top with 2.7225 points followed by Kabete National Polytechnic (2.7756), The Meru National Polytechnic (2.8140), Thika Technical Training Institute (2.8230), Mukurweini Technical Training Institute (2.8248) while Michuki Technical Training Institute was top six with 2.8333 points.
Karumo Technical Training Institute was number seven with 2, 8404 while Godoma Technical Training Institute was number eight with 2. 8683 with Kaiboi Technical Training Institute and Siaya Institute of Technology scooping positions nine and ten with 2.8894 and 2.9679 points respectively.
The report shows that the TVET outshone Teachers' Colleges and National Polytechnics across the country. This was attributed to enhanced government capitation and sponsorship by the Higher Loans Board.
Kaimosi Teachers college was the last one with 3.8633 points followed by Gatanga Technical and Vocational College(3.8956), Okame Technical and Vocational College (3.9010), Konoin Technical Training Institute(3.9573), Narok Teachers Training College (3.9734), Muranga Technical Training Institute (3.9853), David Wambui technical (4.0831) and Weru Technical and Vocational College completed the bottom eight list with (4.0867) points.
Nachu technical and Vocational College came number nine last with 4.2216 points followed by Nuu technical and vocational college at 4.3410 points.
According to the report, government ministries and agencies failed to meet the legal requirement of having at least 30 per cent of all tenders allocated to the youth, women and people living with disabilities.
Of the tenders worth Sh67.47 billion available across the government the special category was only allocated contracts valued at Sh45.96 billion in the 2019/2020 financial year.
This means that ministries and state agencies fell short of the legal requirement in the allocation of tenders by 31.88 per cent.
The 2019/2020 was the sixth cycle of continuous implementation of performance contracting in the public service as part of the government's reform initiatives to improve service delivery.
A performance contract is a management tool used to prioritise MDAs annual undertaking and for measuring performance against agreed performance targets.
It is a freely negotiated performance agreement between the government and the various government ministries, agencies and departments with clear commitments and obligations.
This ensures efficient service delivery to the public by holding public officers to account for their results.
In the 2019/2020 financial year, a total of 366 MDAs signed and implemented performance contracts-comprising 21 ministries, State House, Office of the deputy president, AG's office, 223 state corporations and 119 tertiary institutions.
Before the commencement of the moderation exercise which was done in November last year, the MDGAs were required to conduct a self-evaluation using process using the automated performance evaluation platform. The platform was based on 16th performance contracting guidelines.
This was then followed by the moderation exercise by an external technical team of professionals from the PSPMMU supported by officers drawn from public service departments.
The five performance grades fall on a 5-point scale of between a raw/ composite score of 1 and 5 where a score of 1 is the best while 5 is the worst.
Achievement levels were then categorised into excellent, very good, good, fair and poor against target of 30 per cent.