Public Resource Utilization and Efficiency of Service Delivery of the County Governments in Kenya: A Case of Machakos County

Abstract

Efficiency on service delivery is about those with authority being answerable for their actions to the citizens, whether directly or indirectly, and managerial efficiency on service delivery is about making those with delegated authority answerable for carrying out agreed tasks according to agreed criteria of performance. The interest in efficiency on service delivery within public sector reform is a desire to make public sector staff more accountable for their decisions and actions. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of public resource utilization on the efficiency of service delivery of the county government of Machakos. Specifically, the study sought to: establish the effect of equitable share utilization on the efficiency of service delivery of Machakos County Government, Kenya, determine the effect of own source revenue utilization on the efficiency of service delivery of Machakos County Government, Kenya, to assess the effect of donor funding utilization on the efficiency of service delivery of Machakos County Government, Kenya and investigate the effect of conditional grants utilization on the efficiency of service delivery of Machakos County Government, Kenya. The study additionally sought to determine the moderating effect of county service delivery principles on the relationship between public resource utilization and efficiency of service delivery of the county government of Machakos. The study was informed by Public Choice Theory of Budget, The resource-based view theory and the Rostow-Musgrave Model. The study adopted a descriptive research design and targeted all the employees of Machakos County totaling to 1,950. The study used a simple random sampling of 10% of the total population yielding 195 respondents as the sample size. The study used both primary and secondary data. Primary data was collected using structured questionnaire, while secondary data gathered using data collection sheet. The collected data was analyzed with the aid of SPSS using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The study used Pearson correlation to show the association between the independent variables and the dependent variable. The results were presented in tables, charts and bars. It was established from the findings that; money set by national government wasn’t used effectively for the current expenditure and that the county government was striving to collect and prudently utilized it’s owned collected revenue. External donors were observed as the leading source of income for development and that the county rarely received the equalization funds disbursed on an annual basis. The study recommends that the central government should monitor and evaluate the utilization of funds and disburse equalization funds timely. The county government on the other hand should uphold integrity in the utilization if funds and seek to generate more funds locally. Keywords: Public resource utilization, equitable share utilization, County own source revenue utilization, Donor funding utilization, Conditional grants utilization, Efficiency of service delivery, County service delivery principles