President William Ruto chairs a Cabinet meeting at State House, Nairobi on September 17, 2024.
President William Ruto has summoned Cabinet secretaries and principal secretaries to State House to sign fresh performance contracts on November 19.
They are expected to commit to a new set of ambitious targets for the government’s priority projects amid pressure to deliver on pre-election promises.
The exercise, which is done annually, has more or less become a ritual with little to show for it. However, its proponents argue that it is part of the Key Performance Indicator (KPI) for public servants.
In a circular obtained by the Nation, Head of the Public Service Felix Koskei has ordered all CSs and PSs to be “physically present” at State House for the signing of performance contracts.
The event, to be presided over by the Head of State, is a culmination of a month-long negotiation and validation by ministries of key projects to be delivered by June next year.
The CSs and PSs have, during the exercise, been supervised by the Deputy Chief of Staff in the Executive Office of the President responsible for Performance and Delivery Management in Government, Mr Eliud Owalo, and the Secretary to the Cabinet Ms Mercy Wanjau.
“…the President will preside over the signing of performance contracts for all ministries for the financial year 2024/2025 at State House, Nairobi on Tuesday, November 19, 2024, at 9am,” said Mr Koskei in the circular dated November 12.
“The Attorney-General, all Cabinet Secretaries and all Principal Secretaries must be physically present at the signing ceremony.”
Chairpersons and chief executive officers of State Corporations have also been invited.
Mr Koskei said the signing ceremony marks an important step towards achieving the country’s development goals as well as enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of public service delivery.
Priority commitments
He described the exercise as a major management tool that facilitates timely implementation of priority commitments for public institutions while enhancing linkages between planning, budgeting and execution of their mandate.
“The performance contracts for FY 2024/2025 have incorporated commitments to deliver Kenya Kwanza administration’s development agenda – Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda (2022-2027).
The performance contracts have been successfully vetted and validated to ensure compliance with the 21st cycle performance contracting guidelines for FY 2024/2025,” he said.
This will be the second time the President is leading his Cabinet to set goals after a similar one done last year in August where Dr Ruto scolded some ministers for being clueless about their dockets while latecomers were locked out.
Some of the CSs were also locked out for showing up late.
Dr Ruto was in July forced by the protesting youths to dissolve his Cabinet for poor performance and corruption.
Currently, the President is still under a lot of pressure to deliver on some of the lofty promises that he made in the run-up to the 2022 polls. With the growing disaffection, the President will be putting pressure on his top officials to perform as part of his 2027 re-election plan.
Mr Owalo on Wednesday told Nation that moving forward, the government will be seeking to tie performance contracting and the corresponding performance appraisal to reward management.
“Ministries, Departments and Agencies which meet or surpass their targets will be rewarded to a level commensurate with their performance. But equally, underperforming Ministries, Departments and Agencies will face sanctions,” said Mr Owalo, who has been tasked by the President to develop and implement a framework for performance contracting and evaluation across the senior ranks of the Executive including Cabinet Secretaries.
Targets
“By extension, the above two implications will impact on the leadership of Ministries, Departments and Agencies in their individual capacities. The Performance contracting framework will be cascaded downwards to the lowest levels up to the individual Scorecard. Everyone in the Public Service will be held accountable for results,” he explained.
In the last one 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 construct 66,155 affordable housing 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 the 47 counties. The Ministry is under CS Alice Wahome.
Agriculture ministry, which is also critical in bringing down the cost of living, committed to facilitate provision of subsidized fertilizer as a way of enhancing production of maize and other crops across the country.
The ministry committed to have at least 12.5 million bags of fertiliser distributed to farmers by next year. The ministry further committed to register an additional 200,000 farmers on the e-voucher system.
“To increase market access for livestock products in line with the Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda on agricultural pillar, the Cabinet Secretary commits to improve food safety for foods of animal origin by having 15 milk processing plants, eight export slaughterhouses,” the ministry committed.
Trade ministry also committed to coordinate the implementation of the Buy Kenya-Build Kenya initiative.
“In order to nurture SME exporters with the majority local Kenyan shareholding in the Horticulture/Food Processing, Textile/Apparel, Leather, Commercial Crafts, BPO and ICT sectors, the Ministry commits to complete the development of and operationalisation of Four (4) Flagship Export Processing Zones projects as well as the construction of 19 County Aggregation and Industrial Park (CAIPs),” committed the ministry.
