Public Accountability Practice and Devolved Administrative Structures in Selected Semi-arid Counties in Kenya

Authors

  • Jumanne Andrew Shangarai
  • Dr. Jane Njoroge
  • Dr. Edna Jemutai Moi

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.47672/ajppa.1327

Keywords:

Public accountability, devolved administrative structures, Taita-Taveta, Makueni, Counties, Kenya

Abstract

Purpose: Devolved administrative structures serve a critical role in insulating public officials against power abuse and enhancing the stability of the political environment. Since the inception of devolution in Kenya, proper operationalization of devolved administrative structures ought to be in place. The problem lies in the operationalization of devolved administrative structures that has led to poor service delivery. This study intended toibridge the gap by determining the effect ofipublic accountability practices on theidevolved administrative structures.

Methodology: The study incorporated institutional theory explaining an institution as entities that are dependent on each other to form complete systems that are concerned with internal interdependence. The target population was 500 respondents from Taita Taveta and Makueni Counties. Purposive sampling was utilized to sample the top leadership who are mandated to oversee functions in the devolved administrative setups; the governor's, deputy governors, speakers of county assembly and clerks of county assembly. Random sampling technique was utilized to sample members of county assemblies, county executive members, chief officers, county public service board members, directors, sub-county administrators, ward administrators, and village administrators

Findings: The study found significant relationship betweenipubliciaccountability andidevolvediadministrativeistructures.

Recommendation: This study recommends that top leadership in Counties must come up with project ideas which are persuasive and create improvement of devolved administrative structures that give persuasive transformation.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biographies

Jumanne Andrew Shangarai

Ph.D Candidate (Public Administration), Department of Public Policy and Administration Kenyatta University, Kenya.

Dr. Jane Njoroge

Lecturer, Department of Public Policy and Administration, Kenyatta University, Kenya.

Dr. Edna Jemutai Moi

Lecturer, Department of Public Policy and Administration, Kenyatta University, Kenya.

References

Abdow, A. I. (2019). Influence of strategic leadership on organizational change in the petroleum industry in Kenya (Doctoral dissertation, JKUAT-COHRED).

Akanga, J. O. (2014). Character development through education in Kenya: A pragmatic perspective (Doctoral dissertation, University of Nairobi).

Algarni, F., & Male, T. (2014). Leadership in Saudi Arabian public schools: Time for devolution? International Studies in Educational Administration (Commonwealth Council for Educational Administration & Management (CCEAM)), 42(3).

Alonso-Garbayo, A., Raven, J., Theobald, S., Ssengooba, F., Nattimba, M., & Martineau, T. (2017). Decision space for health workforce management in decentralized settings: a case study in Uganda. Health Policy and Planning.

Anderson, B. R. (2016). Improving healthcare by embracing systems theory. The Journal of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery, 152(2), 593.

Andersen, J. A. (2018). Servant leadership and transformational leadership: From comparisons to farewells. Leadership & Organization Development Journal.

Banerjee, A., Duflo, E., Imbert, C., Mathew, S., & Pande, R. (2020). E-governance, accountability, and leakage in public programs: Experimental evidence from a financial management reform in India. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 12(4), 39-72.

Busuioc, E. M., & Lodge, M. (2016). The reputational basis of public accountability. Governance, 29(2), 247-263.

Cattaneo, M. D., Jansson, M., & Newey, W. K. (2018). Inference in linear regression models with many covariates and heteroscedasticity. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 113(523), 1350-1361.

Cochran, W. A. G. (1977). Sampling Techniques, John Wiley & Sons Inc. New York, 135.

Chigwata, T., de Visser, J., & Ayele, Z. (2021). Real or Imagined Local Autonomy: Experiences from Local Government in Ethiopia, South Africa and Zimbabwe. In Beyond Autonomy (pp. 189-216).

Constitution of Kenya (2010), Republic of Kenya: Government Printer.

Cooper, D. R., & Schindler, P. S. (2014). Business Research Methods (12th Edition). New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin

County government Act (2012,) Republic of Kenya: Government Printer.

Dyzenhaus, A., & Cheeseman, N. (2018). Decentralisation: Accountability in local government. Institutions and Democracy in Africa: How the Rules of the Game Shape Political Developments.

Field, A. P. (2017).Discovering statistics using SPSS, North American Edition.

Florian, L., & Becirevic, M. (2014). Challenges for teachers' professional learning for inclusive education in Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States. Prospects, 41(3), 371.

Forrer, J., Kee, J. E., Newcomer, K. E., & Boyer, E. (2010). Public-Private Partnerships and the Public Accountability Question. Public Administration Review, 70(3), 475-484. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2010.02161.x

Gooden, S. T., & Berry-James, R. (2018). Why Research Methods Matter. Melvin & Leigh, Publishers.

Hair, J.F., Jr., RE., Anderson, R.L.T. & Black, W.C. (2010). Multivariate data Analysis.

Hu, J., Erdogan, B., Jiang, K., Bauer, T. N., & Liu, S. (2018). Leader humility and team creativity: The role of team information sharing, psychological safety, and power distance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 103(3), 313.

Ibietan, J. (2017). Corruption and public accountability in the Nigerian public sector: Interrogating the omission. European Journal of Business and Management, 5(15), 41-48.

Jaleha, A. A., & Machuki, V. N. (2018). Strategic leadership and organizational performance: A critical review of literature. European Scientific Journal, 14(35), 124-149.

Jooste, K., & Hamani, M. (2017). The motivational needs of primary health care nurses to acquire power as leaders in a mine clinic setting. Health SA Gesondheid, 22, 43-51.

Jumanne, A. S & Njoroge, J.G., (2018, Structural Change Management and Employee Performance in Public Sector Organizations in Kenya: Case of the Parliamentary Service Commission, Journal of Strategic Management, ISSN 2520-0461(Online), Vol.3, Issue 1 No.2, pp 14 - 25, 2018.

Kaushik, V., & Walsh, C. A. (2019). Pragmatism as a research paradigm and its implications for social work research. Social Sciences, 8(9), 255.

Lammers, J. C., & Garcia, M. A. (2017). Institutional theory approaches. The International Encyclopedia of Organizational Communication, 1-10.

Manzoor, F., Wei, L., Nurunnabi, M., Subhan, Q. A., Shah, S. I. A., & Fallatah, S. (2019). The impact of transformational leadership on job performance and CSR as mediator in SMEs. Sustainability, 11(2), 436.

Masungo, T. W., Marangu, W. N., Obunga, C. A., & Lilungu, D. (2015). Effect of strategic leadership on the performance of devolved government system in Kakamega County, Kenya. European Journal of Business and Management, 7(13), 327-338.

Mberi, T., Sevilla, J., Olukuru, J., Mutegi, L., & Weru, T. (2017, May). Challenges to the successful implementation of e-governance systems in Africa: A case of Taita Taveta County, Kenya. In 2017 IST-Africa Week Conference (IST-Africa) (pp. 1-8). IEEE.

Morgan, D. L. (2014). Pragmatism as a paradigm for social research. Qualitative inquiry, 20(8), 1045-1053.

Munzhedzi, P. (2017). The Role of Separation of Powers in Ensuring Public Accountability in South Africa: Policy Versus Practice. 7.

Ochieng, K. O. (2017). Who is responsible? Local government and accountability for service delivery in Kenya's devolved health sector. Commonwealth Journal of Local Governance, 158-171.

Opalo, K. (2019). Citizen Political Knowledge and Accountability: Panel Survey Evidence on Devolved Government in Kenya. Available at SSRN 3318493.

Prosser, B., Renwick, A., Giovannini, A., Sandford, M., Flinders, M., Jennings, W., Smith, G., Spada, P., Stoker, G., & Ghose, K. (2017). Citizen participation and changing governance: Cases of devolution in England. Policy & Politics, 45(2), 251-269.

Ramosaj, B. (2014). Systems theory and systems approach to leadership. ILIRIA International Review, 4(1), 59-76.

Resnick, D. (2017). Democracy, decentralization, and district proliferation: The case of Ghana. Political Geography, 59, 47-60.

Ribeiro, N., Yücel, İ., & Gomes, D. (2018). How transformational leadership predicts employees' affective commitment and performance. International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management.

Said, J., Alam, M. M., & Aziz, M. A. (2015). Public accountability system: Empirical

Saito, F. (2012). Decentralization and development partnership: lessons from Uganda. Springer Science & Business Media.

Schillemans, T. (2016). Calibrating Public Sector Accountability: Translating experimental findings to public sector accountability. Public Management Review, 18(9), 1400-1420.

Sekaran, U., & Bougie, R. (2016). Research Methods for business: A skill Building Approach(5th Ed.). Haddington: John Wiley & Sons Publishers.

Serfontein, R., Kruger, H., & Drevin, L. (2019). The impact of strategic leadership on the operational strategy and performance of business organisations in South Africa (Doctoral dissertation, Stellenbosch: University of Stellenbosch).

Smoke, P. (2015). Rethinking decentralization: Assessing challenges to a popular public sector reform. Public Administration and Development, 35(2), 97-112.

Steeves, J. (2015). Devolution in Kenya: Derailed or on track?. Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, 53(4), 457-474.

Urban Areas and Cities (Amended Act. 2019), Republic of Kenya: Government Printer.

Urban Areas and Cities Act. (2011), Republic of Kenya: Government Printer.

Wa Gĩthĩnji, M., & Holmquist, F. (2016). Reform and political impunity in Kenya: transparency without accountability. African Studies Review, 53-74.

Wainaina Eric, (January 14th, 2016), Kiambu County on the Sport over Failure to keep the Executive on Check,Nairobi: Daily Nation, Retrieved from https://www.nation.ac.ke/counties/kiambu.

Walliman, N. (2017). Research methods: The basics. Routledge.

Wambui, E. (2015), Murang'a County Governor Impeachment Rejected, Monthly 1( 1) 12-14

Wangari, T. M. (2014). Factors Influening Citizens' satisfaction with Service Delivery: A Case of Murang'a County, Kenya. . Unpublished MSc Project, Nairobi: The University of Nairobi.

Warner, R. M. (2008). Applied Statistics: From Bivariate through Multivariate Techniques.

Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Wilson, D. J. (2019). The harmonic mean p-value for combining dependent tests. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(4), 1195-1200.

Wooldridge, K. (2000). data Analysis for linear regression. 7thEd. New Jersey.

Prentice-Hall International. Inc.

Yamane T. (1967). Statistics, An Introductory Analysis, 2nd Ed., New York: Harper and Row, pp 886.

Yusoff, M. A., Sarjoon, A., Awang, A., & Efendi, D. (2016). Conceptualizing Decentralization and its Dimensions. . International Journal for Business Management, 10(6), 692-701.

Zhang, D. (2017). A coefficient of determination for generalized linear models. The American Statistician, 71(4), 310-316.

Zungura, M. (2014). Understanding New Public Management within the Context of Zimbabwe. International Review of Social Sciences and Humanities,, 6(2), 246-253

Downloads

Published

2023-01-16

How to Cite

Jumanne , A. S., Njoroge, J. ., & Moi, E. J. . (2023). Public Accountability Practice and Devolved Administrative Structures in Selected Semi-arid Counties in Kenya. American Journal of Public Policy and Administration, 8(1), 25–49. https://doi.org/10.47672/ajppa.1327