State House, Office of the Attorney General and Department of Justice have been ranked the best ministries in service deliveries, a new government report shows.
The Ministry of Devolution and Development of Arid and Semi-Arid Lands, on the other hand, is the worst-performing.
This is according to an evaluation conducted by the Public Service Performance Management and Monitoring Unit.
Out of the 21 ministries, State House, Office of the Deputy President and Office of the Attorney General and Department of Justice whose performance was evaluated, none attained an “excellent” performance grade while two attained a “very good” performance grade.
A total of 17 ministries and the Office of the Deputy President achieved a “good” performance grade representing 75 percent while three ministries representing 12.5 percent attained “fair” performance grade.
One ministry achieved a “poor” performance grade.
The report is the latest on the evaluation of performance in government and covers the 2020/2021 financial year. The ranking was based on selected performance criteria/indicators "that have a direct impact on service delivery”.
These included absorption of allocated government funds, absorption of externally mobilised resources, core mandate, access to government procurement opportunities, youth internships, industrial attachments and apprenticeships, and corruption prevention.
“The performance of Ministries had a marginal decline in the FY 2020/2021 compared to that of FY 2019/2020 since the average composite score changed from 3.3920 to 3.4073,” says the report.
It also shows that there is a significantly lower performance by ministries compared to State corporations and tertiary institutions.
Cabinet Secretary for Public Service and Gender Prof Margaret Kobia said that although the performance of all sectors of the economy were affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, MDAs had in place mitigation measures that ensured delivery of public service with minimal disruptions.
“We celebrate this spirit of innovation and responsiveness to emerging issues," she says in the report.
That notwithstanding, Prof Kobia said the government will continue using performance contracting as one of the performance management tools in achieving annual performance targets and ultimately the respective mandates.
Completing the top five positions in the ranking were the Ministry of Energy headed by Monica Juma, the Ministry of Tourism (Najib Balala) and the National Treasury and Planning (Ukur Yatani).
On the opposite end, the other bottom ministries are the Ministry of Sports, Culture and Heritage (headed by Amina Mohamed), Ministry of Agriculture headed by ( Peter Munya), Ministry of Industrialization (headed by Betty Maina) and Ministry of East African Community and Regional Development (which was previously headed by Adan Mohamed).
