If you can’t measure it, you can’t achieve it, Otuoma tells County directors

By Jabali Media

Busia governor Paul Nyongesa Otuoma has challenged directors in the border county to embrace performance contracting, for effective service delivery.  

Addressing the county officers during a sensitization meeting at the Busia Agricultural Training Centre (ATC) on Monday, the first term county chief said one’s performance can only be measured if gauged against his or her contract.   

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t achieve it,” he insisted, adding that directors are his administration’s senior technical officers, whose role is crucial in the delivery of services to our people.

The officers are being trained by the national government’s director of Public Service, Jackson Aluanga.

“Performance Contracting is an appropriate tool in setting standards of staff performance for the benefit of our people, who are the consumers of our services,” Aluanga said.

Governor Otuma added that the exercise will be escalated to the Chief Officers, and the County Executive Committee Members, so that each of them is held accountable, “in the same way the people of Busia will hold me to account at the ballot in 2027.”

Performance contract is a tool aimed at improving efficiency and effectiveness in the management of public service.

It involves four main stages; negotiation, vetting, implementation and evaluation. It is used in the Kenyan public service to measure performance.

Reports indicate that local authorities, in this case, county governments face pressure to improve on service delivery.

Performance contracting was introduced in Kenya in 1989 but failed to realise the expected outcomes.

In 2004, during late President Mwai Kibaki’s reign, it was reintroduced in some state corporations on pilot basis and its success saw it gradually cascaded to other institutions.

It forms a basis for implementation of the national development agenda as advocated for in Kenya’s Vision 2030.