A STUDY ON CHALLENGES OF DEVOLUTION IN KENYAN PUBLIC SERVICE: A CASE STUDY OF GARISSA COUNTY, KENYA

Abstract

Despite enactment of devolution by the constitution of Kenya 2010, Garissa County was still marginalized. The expectation of Garissa resident was that significant development could have been achieved. However, this was never the case. This study was aimed at investigating challenges of devolution of public service in Garissa County. Kenya adopted devolution as an approach of governance. When the constitution of Kenya 2010 was promulgated, the governance structure transformed from centralized governance to devolved subunits referred to as county government. The country had witness a gradual but rather comprehensive transfer of resources, power and responsibility from the central government to the 47 county governments as stipulated in the constitution of Kenya 2010. Essential services that has been devolved included; primary and vocational education, health, water and sanitation and rural feeder roads. Similarly, the findings of this study can be applied to other counties in the country since they have similar structures of governance. The population of the study majorly constituted of the staff employed by the Garissa County public service board. Stratified random sampling was used to select 129 respondents from the employees of Garissa County. Both primary and secondary data were employed in this study. The study has established that employment and procurement law have not been effectively adhered. Resource mobilizations needed to be encouraged instead of depending funding from central government. For successful implementation of devolution, the county government of Garissa needed to allocate sufficient funds for capacity building of staff to promote quality service delivery. Article visualizations: