Perform, President Ruto tells Cabinet as CSs sign new performance contracts

President William Ruto has directed Cabinet secretaries and senior government officials to deliver on their mandates without delays and excuses.

He gave the order on Tuesday during the signing of the ministerial performance contracts at State House, Nairobi, where the president said that he would not condone laxity in his administration.

All Cabinet Secretaries were present except for Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) CS Margaret Nyambura.

Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi signed the contracts of three ministries— Foreign Affairs, Interior and National Coordination as well as Culture and Heritage. Interior and Culture dockets are vacant.

The Head of State said performance contracting was but one of the measures his government had employed to continually improve service delivery for Kenya’s growth.

The inking of the contracts was a culmination of a month-long negotiation and validation by ministries in an exercise supervised by Deputy Chief of Staff in the Executive Office of the President responsible for Performance and Delivery Management in Government Eliud Owalo, and Secretary to the Cabinet Mercy Wanjau.

Commitments 

In the last month, the CSs and PSs committed to various targets.

Lands, Public Works and Housing Ministry, which is currently implementing President Ruto’s ambitious but controversial affordable housing project, committed to constructing 66,155 affordable units to various levels of completion as well as 52,758 social housing units to various levels of completion by June.

The ministry further committed to construct 41,964 housing units— consisting of 24,152 for National Police, 10,033 for Kenya Defense Forces and 7,779 for student accommodation to various completion levels.

Also to be achieved by the ministry is the registration and issuance of 280,000 title deeds covering all 47 counties.  The Ministry is under CS Alice Wahome.

Meanwhile, Agriculture ministry, which is also critical in bringing down the cost of living, committed to facilitating the provision of subsidised fertiliser as a way of enhancing production of maize and other crops across the country.

Agriculture CS Andrew Mwihia committed to having at least 12.5 million bags of fertiliser distributed to farmers by next year as well as registering an additional 200,000 farmers on the e-voucher system.

Performance contracting, the President explained, is one of the robust commitments for results framework that ensures accountability for public resources and performance in the public service.

With the performance contracts for the 2024/25 financial year drafted after negotiations, vetting and validation through consultations that took into consideration the available resources, President Ruto said there should be no reason for not achieving commitments therein.

“What we signed today are action plans that need urgent execution. I expect each CS to take responsibility for what they signed. There is no room for excuses, delay or failure,” Mr Ruto said.

Although the economy is at a difficult place globally, the Commander-in-Chief said he was confident that Kenya has the team that will transform the nation.

He said his administration would ensure that it delivers on the five pillars – agriculture, micro small and medium size enterprise economy, affordable housing, universal healthcare coverage and the digital superhighway and creative economy- and silence their critics.

The Kenya Kwanza regime has been on the receiving end of criticisms from the Opposition, civil societies, and most recently, the Church, trailing blame on it for its failure to deliver on its promises.

In response, President Ruto said whereas Kenya is on economic and social tenterhooks, he had no doubt his regime would ucceed where the previous regimes did not and particularly cited the changes in the healthcare insurance system that saw the Social Health Authority replace the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF).

“We had the NHIF that could not deliver on healthcare and replaced it with a better system where everyone, including the most vulnerable, will access healthcare. We will confound the naysayers, we will succeed. This country will not fail,” he said.

The Head of State then emphasised on the need for the government workers to work together and create “momentum and synergy to succeed” saying the success of Kenya is going to be the success of all arms of government.

On his part, Deputy President Kithure Kindiki said by virtue of the Kenya Kwanza regime being elected, Kenyans had expectations that it would deliver on the promises it made and thus demand for nothing but transparency on the part of leaders.

“Transparency is crucial because it ensures there is accountability, reporting back and evaluation. We have to work harder, faster and more efficiently if we are to keep up with the vibrant democracy that our country has become,” he said.

Should this be attained, then the government will be one that is sensitive to the needs of the people of Kenya, the DP said.

Mr Mudavadi urged the leaders to take the signing of the performance contract very seriously and ensure that they implement what is in the document.

“Even as we execute our mandates, it is very crucial that we exercise humility, integrity and focus on performance and delivery,” he said.

This was the second signing of ministerial performance contracts under President William Ruto with his first one being in August 2023 where he, and the then Deputy President, Rigathi Gachagua, expressed their displeasure on the tardiness of some Cabinet secretaries who got late to the function and were effectively locked out of State House.

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