Legal and Regulatory Requirements and Project Implementation in the Public Sector: Case of Bura Irrigation Scheme, Kenya

Abstract

Implementation of irrigation projects within the public sector is a critical component of achieving the nutritional development and food security agenda of any nation. It remains the most viable method of ensuring food production in arid and semi-arid areas such as in Kenya's northern frontier. Governments across the world and even in Africa have continuously grappled with several challenges in a bid to ensure food security for their citizens amid the exponential growth in population. These vast populations require food for survival and hence the need to find sustainable means of food production. However, implementation of such irrigation projects continues to be riddled with a variety of challenges, that are assumed to have had an impact on such public sector projects are implemented. In an effort to meet one of Kenya's Big Four Agenda of Food Security and Nutrition it is vital that some of the determinants that affect the implementation of irrigation projects by the public sector such as the Bura Irrigation Scheme are sufficiently explored and addressed.  It is the aim of the government to complete the projects on time; under a stipulated budget as well as that it should be accepted and utilized by the clients it is meant for, that is, the citizens. The purpose of this study was to find out how legal and regulatory requirements determine project implementation in Bura Irrigation Scheme. A literature and empirical survey indicate that legal and regulatory requirements within the public sector as some of the likely variable with regard to implementation of projects in the public sector. Some of the theories that have been identified in relation to these variables include the Resource Dependence Theory and the Systems Theory. It was therefore the purpose of the study to investigate this variable using the Bura Irrigation Scheme as the case of study. The study adopted descriptive research design using questionnaires as the primary research instrument of collecting data in a confidential and cost-effective manner from a target population of 50 respondents. The sample size was determined through census study which identified all the 50 respondents as the sample size due to their knowledge of the intricacies surrounding the project. The data collected was analyzed and presented using regression analysis.  The study found that legal and regulatory requirements positively and significantly influence project implementation in Bura Irrigation Scheme. There is therefore need to improve bureaucracy in the implementation of the Bura Irrigation Scheme.