Project Management Practices And Performance Of The Public Projects In Mombasa County, Kenya

ABSTRACT

The performance of most projects in Kenya fails to meet the expected goal based on

time and cost indicators. More than seventy percent of the implemented projects

recorded time and cost variations. Most of Kenya’s urban construction sector projects

fail to achieve their objectives despite the many rules, regulations and the quality

training of the consultants. In 2016, Mombasa County failed to deliver on its

development public projects to the tune of forty seven percent. The study had the aim

of exploring the effects of project management practices (PMP) on public projects

performance in the county of Mombasa, Kenya. Specifically, the study sought to

explore effect of planning, financial management practices (FMP), stakeholders’

involvement, project team competence and monitoring and evaluation on public

projects performance. The study anchored on systems theory as the core theory for the

study. The design embraced by the study is descriptive research design. Collection of

data was through open and closed ended questionnaires from a target population of

189. The sampling was done by use of a stratified sampling procedure and the sample

size was 66 project officers. The researcher delivered the questionnaires to the

respondent and picked them later after they were filled. Pilot study was carried out on

nineteen project officers from the target population who did not participate in the

study. The data reliability was determined by using the test-retest technique and

reliability measures were analysed by calculating Cronbach’s alpha coefficients. The

data was analysed by use of qualitative and quantitative techniques. Qualitative data

was analysed using content analysis. Quantitative data was analysed using descriptive

and inferential statistics. The findings indicated that planning, financial management

practices, monitoring and evaluation, project team competences and stakeholders

involvement had a relationship with the public projects’ performance (PPP) in

Mombasa county. The conclusion of the study was that the performance of the project

is partly caused by the planning, financial management practices, monitoring and

evaluation, project management team competencies and stakeholder’s involvement. It

is recommended that planning of project be undertaken before commencement to

ensure availability of resources and provide a roadmap for successful project

implementation. It is also recommended that disbursement of funds should be done on

time to avoid cost variations and interruptions of the project during implementation. It

is also recommended that the government hires competent project managers who have

the qualifications in project management (PM) in order to carry out proper planning

and management of projects. It is further recommended that sufficient funds should be

allocated to monitoring and evaluation activities. It is also recommended that

stakeholders should be involved in the projects from the design stage and in the

implementation for them to own the project and embrace the project outcome. It is

also recommended that the government ensures more public participation in the management of public projects.