Challenges Affecting Implementation of Constituency Development Fund Projects In Kenya: Case of Kinangop Constituency in Nyandarua County

Abstract

Kenya, a developing economy like most of Latin American countries, has had a number of decentralized programmes most of which have been geared towards fighting rampant poverty, diseases and illiteracy among its citizens. Of all the decentralized programmes initiated in Kenya, Constituency Development Fund (CDF) is among the recent most popular with the largest participation of the citizens at the grassroots. The justification of this study is based on the premise that, decentralized programmes initiated in Kenya have had short comings in their implementation. This research aimed to investigate the challenges that affect implementation of projects in a decentralized system of governance. The overall objective was to find out the problems ailing project implementation in such a set up and more specifically the area of funding, beneficiaries’ involvement, project supervision and political interference. The researcher used descriptive survey design. The sampling technique used was stratified random sampling. A sample of 164 respondents from a population of 545 drawn from 109 CDF funded projects in Kinangop were used. Data was collected from the chairman, secretary and treasurer of PMCs and the Fund Account Manager (Kinangop constituency) and District Work Officer (Kinangop constituency) through open and close ended questionnaires. The data collected was both qualitative and quantitative. The qualitative data was analyzed using content analysis while quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Quantitative data was presented in the form of percentages of graphs, pie charts and tables while the qualitative data was presented using narratives. The study findings indicates that level of funding, frequency of funding, allocation of funds and adequacy of funding greatly affected implementation of projects in Kinangop constituency. The study results presented that stakeholders were involved to a great extent in project identification, project implementation, monitoring and evaluation and project closure. The results indicates that approved plans and BOQ, inspection reports, completion certificate, consultation with technical staff and technical staff availability greatly affected the implementation of CDF projects in Kinangop constituency. The study results indicated that to a great extent government policies, regulations and legislation affected implementation of CDF projects. These was evidenced by the fact that changes in policy, changes in Regulations, changes in legislations, unclear policies and procedures and communicating the regulations prior to project implementations greatly affected implementation of projects. The study concludes that funding and project implementation have a positive and significant relationship. The study concludes that project supervision and project implementation have a positive and meaningful relationship. According to the findings, a positive unit increase in project supervision leads to positive unit improvements in project implementation. The findings show that government regulations and project implementation have a positive and significant relationship.