State Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation says the platform will increase transparency in the implementation of government projects and how money was used/FILE
NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 14 – The Ministry of Devolution and planning has invested in a Sh130 million web portal that will be used to monitor governments’ projects, county performance and Vision 2030 implementation.
State Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Director Samson Machuka says the portal will indicate the real-time progress of projects being implemented, which counties are investing, as well as the sectors lagging behind in the Vision 2030 implementation.
Machuka is hopeful that the platform will increase transparency in the implementation of government projects and how money was used.
“We are currently collecting information with planning officers in counties and different ministries. We have also formed Monitoring and Evaluation Committees in different ministries and counties to track not only projects but also how the money allocated to these projects will be used,” Machuka said.
He says the committees will also track and counter check all the information gotten from the counties and ministries to avoid errors and misrepresentation.
Lack of enough resources, Machuka says, has inhibited adequate monitoring of projects in Kenya.
The director is however optimistic that the upcoming Monitoring and Evaluation policy will streamline the sector.
“We hope the policy which is currently at the Cabinet level, will also be taken to parliament and be made law. We are also seeking for one percent budget of development to be allocated to Monitoring and Evaluation,” he hoped.
A report by Deloitte East Africa released last month revealed that cost and time overruns are the major reasons infrastructure projects are abandoned in Kenya with 87 percent of projects having a time overrun.
Deloitte Africa Infrastructure & Capital Projects Leader Jean-Pierre Labuschagne noted that the project overruns in Kenya were due to procurement delays – either upfront or during the construction period which results in significant cost escalations.
The Deloitte Construction 2017 report finds that where projects are contracted irregularly, procurement challenges can be a major factor leading to project delays and cost overruns.
