Effect Of Reforms On Services Delivery In Murang’a County Government

Abstract

The Kenya County Governments has a growing need to enhance service delivery as a key devolution objective. Insufficient funding, labor disputes, poor involvement in the budget process, and insufficient responsibility for the delegated resources from the exchequer are just a few of the difficulties the county has in providing services. The Auditor General has also repeatedly cited Murang'a County for failing to comply with a number of laws and regulations, which has had a significant impact on service delivery. The goal of this study was to determine how reforms affected the way the Murang'a County Government delivered services. The study's specific goals were to: evaluate the effects of automation on service delivery; ascertain the impact of procurement law changes on service delivery; ascertain the extent to which changes in motivational factors have an impact on service delivery; and ascertain the impact of leadership transition on service delivery in the Murang'a County Government. The study's methodology was a social survey utilizing mixed method. All 4,000 County Government employees made up the study's target population, from which a sample of 350 county employees was drawn. Data was gathered using a semi-structured questionnaire and processed with SPSS Version 22. The findings show a good and significant relationship between service delivery and reforms. Shows that reforms and service delivery at the County government of Murang’a had a strong linear relationship (correlation value of 0.830). The overall ANOVA results indicate that the regression model was significant at F=9.381 and (p<0.05) at 0.05 or 5% level of significant. Coefficient of determination (R2) was 0.113 which was significant at 0.001 level. This implied that reforms explained about 11.3% of the variation in service delivery. While automation and procurement laws reforms were not significant in correlation with service delivery, Leadership Transition and changes in Staff Motivation were significant and depicted a positive relationship. The study therefore establishes that various reforms and the attendant changes had a significant influence on service delivery in County Government of Murang’a. While the results show that the changes under review only accounted for 11.3% (R2= 0.113), the study concluded that changes in changes in staff motivation due to reforms had significant influence on service delivery in the county. The county staff play an important role in achieving the service delivery. To insulate service delivery from the negative effects of transition every electoral cycle, county staff should be given incentives to motivate in the light of changes that could disrupt service delivery. Also, the implementation of various changes should follow proper guidelines and timeline to ensure effective service delivery. The researcher recommends further studies on other possible factors that might also contribute to service delivery.