Challenges Facing Project Implementation In Selected Public Sector Organizations In Kenya

To enhance service delivery to its citizen, the Government of Kenya established Parastatals by enacting necessary legislations to entrench state corporations and to give them legal impetus thereby bestowing upon them authority and legitimacy to operate. Due to globalization, competitiveness, and streamlining, these parastatals are left with no choice but to execute business strategies by managing tasks through projects and enhance quality of products and service, optimize resources within limited budgets, and complete them within short timelines and budgets. However, there have been issues with regulatory authorities regarding some projects overruns past the stipulated completion time, substandard performance, requests for supplementary budgets to complete stalled projects or in extreme cases abandoned projects. The general objective for this study was to establish challenges facing project implementation in Kenyan Parastatals in the Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife. Specifically, this study sought to achieve the following four objectives: establish the effect of resource planning on project implementation; examine the extent to which client involvement influence project implementation; explore the extent to which corporate management influence project implementation; and to determine the influence of donor requirements on project implementation, in Kenyan parastatals in the Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife. This research used a descriptive survey whose target population consisted of all the employees in the four parastatals in the Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife. Through judgmental sampling, study participants were purposively selected from these parastatals‟ project, finance and donor liaison offices as they were traditionally involved in project implementation. As a result, the total population for the study was 32, eight from each parastatal. Through purposive sampling, only employees involved in project implementation participated in the study. The study used primary data, which was gathered from respondents using a structured questionnaire, which was analyzed using descriptive statistics. The strength of the resultant relationships, between the variables, whether positive or negative, was tested using both parametric and non parametric statistical methods such as correlation analysis coefficient and simple linear regression analysis. It was established that project implementation in these parastatals is not well coordinated and lapses exist that are bound to cause overruns that need streamlining to enhance satisfaction. It is clear that these parastatals face challenges related to resource planning, client involvement, corporate management support and donor conditionalities but to varying extents. Given that the study focused only on parastatals in the Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife, the results may not apply to all public sector organizations. It is recommended that a study is done cutting across all government ministries that would allow for broader generalization of findings.