Govt to sack corrupt officers, says Raila

Prime Minister Raila Odinga has warned public servants who practice corruption or tribalism that they face the sack.

In a series of measures aimed at ensuring the government improves service delivery to the public, Mr Odinga announced that henceforth, the performance of civil servants will be evaluated by external experts and not public institutions to ensure no favouritism takes place.

All public tenders will also be made public on a monthly basis, complete with details of tender sums, winners of tenders and details of delayed projects, including the names of contractors and cost over-runs, the PM directed.

Mr Odinga outlined the tough measures when he presided over the signing of performance contracts by various ministries and government agencies at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre (KICC) Tuesday.

“To persistent non-performers, it is not necessary for me to seek the views of taxpayers on whether they will continue to maintain liabilities in the name of poor performers, or even mediocre standards in public offices,” he said.

“Holders of public office who do not deliver results as committed in the freely signed performance contracts will be required to seek refuge elsewhere,” Mr Odinga warned.

The PM declared that the public will be involved in gauging the performance of ministries and those that do not meet the standards will not be given priority in the budget.

“In the event there will be serious inconsistencies between what a ministry commits to achieve and the expectations of the public, there may be need to reconvene respective negotiating teams to review the indicators and targets. The ministry of Finance will in turn be required to give financing priority to targets which have been duly supported by the public,” Mr Odinga stated.

He announced that the monitoring of project implementation will also be field based as opposed to the current situation where planning units at various ministries conduct the exercises from their offices instead of going to the field.

“The Ministry of Planning, National Development and Vision 2030 will be required to track progress in project monitoring countrywide while the performance contracting department will track and report on implementation of service delivery charters,” Mr Odinga outlined.

He added that the Performance Contracting Department at the PM’s office has organised training for all provincial and district heads across all ministries including Constituency Development Funds committees on performance contracting starting this month.

“In addition, ministries will be required to give priority to automation of services to facilitate countrywide service delivery.”

During the occasion, the ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Public Service Commission (PSC) came under severe censure by the PM and the head of civil service Francis Muthaura for failing to submit their respective performance contracts for evaluation for the second year in a row.

“This is a very bad state of affairs,” Mr Muthaura said in his opening remarks, prompting Mr Odinga to pick up the matter in his speech.

“I need to reiterate here that performance contracting is a government policy from which not a single holder of public office is exempt, including the ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Public Service Commission,’ the PM warned.

Neither the Foreign Affairs minister Moses Wetang’ula nor the Permanent Secretary Mwangi Thuita were present as their counterparts signed their ministries’ contracts for 2009/2010.