Factors Affecting Performance of Staff of Local Authorities in Kenya. (Case of Kisii Municipal Council).

Abstract

In order to have a developed country, all regions of the country must move forward in uniform speed and uniform levels. Local government has been a system of central govenrmnet through which it could distribute its public goods to all its systems. Through the local government the central government can be centralized some of the services which otherwise could be sort from the country‟s headquarters a situation which is not only cumbersome but it‟s also wasting and hence inefficient. However, there has been a hue and cry about the performance in local governments all over the country. This research project intended to analyze the various challenges influencing performance in Local Councils in Kenya. The objectives that guided the study include establishing how team work and motivation are factors influencing performance, to determine how leadership is one of the challenges influencing workers performance, to establish appropriate technology are factors affecting performance of local councils. The findings of this study are likely to go a long way to lift the standards of living of the Kisii residents, inform both the government and the local council leadership, and enable NGO s understand where to chip in and lend a hand to make Local authorities better services delivery instruments. The overall result of the research will contribute to the improvement of service delivery which is in tandem with the on-going public service delivery reforms. The researcher took Kisii Municipal Council as a case study. Given that, not only geographical, technological and economical but also other Kisii circumstances, being quite different from other areas in other parts of Kenya, it may not be possible to generalize the findings of this study. The study used descriptive, causal and explorative design. The study involved a stratified population of top management, middle and lower level employees as respondents. The total population was 424 whereby the management was 27 and the subordinates were 397. The study took a stratified sample of 20% on the employees (staff) by the use of simple random sampling procedure and census on management. A Self Administered Questionnaire (SAQ) which was given at least for two weeks to allow for free well thought answers was used to collect data. The data was analyzed using descriptive Statistics and SPSS program and presented by tables and charts.