Public Finance Management Act 2012 requires 30 per cent threshold of total county budget

On whether devolution has delivered in the last five years, various conflicting reviews have been fronted to justify either its success or failure. However, proper planning and management of county construction projects, many will concur, remains a waterloo.

The Public Finance Management Act 2012 requires a 30 per cent threshold of the total county budget for development. In the last financial year 2016/17, approved budgets for the county governments for development expenditure amounted to Sh165.51 billion being 41 per cent of the total budget. In the face of devolution challenges among them high expenditure on personal emoluments, successful implementation of county construction projects is key if progress is to be achieved.

While in my village recently, stalled or poorly done county government projects glare at you on arrival. A partially poorly completed road that you first meet indicts the county project management team. How a contractor got away with that insults our construction planning and supervision training.

This poor workmanship on projects cuts across majority of our counties, you will be amazed at the quality of some completed or stalled projects you meet when you visit some counties. Project management is bottom in most of our counties priority list, as a result contractors get away with literally every mistake and some projects due to poor planning, or lack of it, cannot be realised.

This is further complicated by counties unqualified contractors. While I appreciate the idea of most counties pre-qualifying local contractors within the county to undertake projects, successful delivery of projects should take precedence regardless of where the contractor comes from. In an urgent need of a dispensary, majority of the locals I believe wouldn't cause a fuss on who builds as long as it is successfully delivered to them. I marvel at the capacity of 'contractors' in my village who are undertaking county projects many of whom, sincerely, are just 'fundis'. To deliver on any project, they must be properly supervised.

DYNAMIC CHALLENGES

In the past few years including recently, you may have noted that County Governments while inviting project consultants bids for major projects they fail, either deliberately or ignorantly, to invite for project management consultancy.

It is imperative they recognise that construction management is a separate discipline and that the skills and knowledge needed to perform successful project management are not automatically part of education and skill sets of other practitioners. It may have worked before, but continuing to do something that worked in the past and expecting to get same results as it always has is mindlessness. A skillful project manager is essential for these projects from inception to completion. Projects don't fail at the end, they fail at the beginning.

The need to successfully manage projects in the 21st century world as I have postulated before, is no longer a luxury, it is a necessity. Construction world-wide has metamorphosed and with it has come dynamic challenges that require best practices to counter, our counties are no exemption.

The county governments must henceforth invest to acquire properly trained construction managers equipped with latest skills to successfully oversee County construction projects.

Quality doesn't necessarily mean cost. One would hope for more allocation of county budget to development expenditure and maybe it will come. However, we must properly manage what we have to make the devolution difference we all anticipated.

If the incoming governors will get it right on planning and management of county projects with the little resources at their disposal, realisation of our great expectations as a country will be on course. This is the waterloo they must break, and soon.