Effect of Accountability Practices on County Government Performance in Kenya: A Case Study in Makueni and Marsabit County Governments

Abstract

With devolution, it is expected that enhanced public involvement through participation and incorporation of other good governances' practices would enhance accountability and performance of county (sub-national) governments in terms of timely delivery of services and accountability in resource utilization.However, previous studies indicate that counties are experiencing inefficient utilization of resources and poor timely delivery of services. About 41 percent of Kenyans were unsatisfied with performances of their counties in 2016, according to Transparency International Survey. This hinders effective performance. Conversely, some counties have performed well according to rating done by Policy Tracking Impact Public Affairs Consulting 2018, which ranked Makueni county government as the best performing county based on development projects and policies implied by counties.Therefore, the study sought to compare the effects of corporate governance practices on performances in Makueni and Marsabit counties. Marsabit County was chosen because despite Makueni being ranked the best, both counties experience almost similar challenges in their governance. The issues of low human capital development, cross-border community level conflicts, and low level of investment in infrastructure, high level of poverty, food insecurity, land degradations and poor health system are the common challenges that affect performance of the two county governments. Therefore, this study sought to examine the effects of accountability governance practices on the selected counties in Kenya. To accomplish the objectives, correlational research design and interpretivism research philosophy was adopted by the study. The target population consisted of county officials and heads of groups and the community leaders in the two counties. Primary data was collected and analyzed using a linear model to estimate the coefficients. The findings indicated that accountability had significant positive effect of 55.8 percent on county government performance. In this regard, the study recommended the need for counties to strengthen county resource management systems to boost accountability and ultimately its performance.