More than half of Kenyans happy with performance of county governments

Samuel Kimeu, Director TI-Kenya, when he released the poll results Monday. According to the polls, over 50 per cent of Kenyans were happy with the performance of county governments. [PHOTO: JOnah onyango/STANDARD]

By RAWLINGS OTIENO

KENYA: A survey by Transparency International (TI) Kenya shows that more than half of Kenyans are happy with the performance of county governments.

According to the poll, 43.7 per cent of respondents said the performance of the county governments was satisfactory.

Another 9.8 per cent said county governments’ performance was very good, while 41 per cent stated that the performance was poor.

However, TI Executive Director Samuel Kimeu cautioned that though it may be early to return an informed judgment on the performance of the county governments, the split perception, especially the negative judgment on performance, does not augur well for a process that is seen as a strategy to support faster and more equitable development.

Mr Kimeu said the government was best rated on implementation of the constitution, with 70 per cent saying the performance was either average or good.

On the delivery of campaign promises, county governments seem to have won the electorates’ hearts, with 74.7 per cent confident that they will partially deliver on all their campaign promises.

This figure is slightly higher than that of those who believe that the national government would fulfil all its election promises (70.3 per cent).

The pollster indicated that observance of human rights and national reconciliation, which has previously done dismally, was also well rated.

The survey also sought to assess Kenyans’ perception of the government’s performance on key governance themes.

Consumer prices

Public assessment on anti-corruption was dismal, with close to 50 per cent of the respondents rating government performance as poor and only 8 per cent rating the same as “good”.

Kimeu said that as a reflection on the steady rise in consumer prices, most of the respondents (88 per cent) rated the government as either poor or average on the economic development front.

“It is encouraging to note that majority of the respondents believe that both the county and national governments will stick to their campaign priorities at least in part. This positive assessment was above 70 per cent for both levels of government,” said Kimeu.

He observed that approximately 10 per cent of the respondents observed that the governments would not deliver on the promises.

Kimeu said both county and national governments should build on the perception and goodwill to deliver on the various mandates, noting that the survey results could have captured the more popular promises by the political players.

But it is not clear to what extent the respondents understood the breadth of promises made at different levels. This would by implication mean that their verdict may only relate to a section of the promises and that others may not have been the basis of the positive public assessment.

Kimeu further said the perception needs to be read alongside the assessment on the appropriateness of the priorities of the national and local governments, where about a third observed that the priorities may be good but not necessarily realistic.