Mudavadi Pushes for Swift Passage of Performance Contracting Law
The country must uphold all public service management reforms that began during President Kibaki’s government to protect its status as a public service management leader.
Prime Cabinet Secretary and Cabinet Secretary for Foreign and Diaspora Affairs Musalia Mudavadi. Photo/Courtesy
By Ruth Sang
Musalia Mudavadi who serves as Prime Cabinet Secretary together with his role as Cabinet Secretary for Foreign and Diaspora Affairs has requested urgent progress on performance contracting legislation to establish permanent legal backing for the system which will function as a dependable mechanism to assess public sector employee performance and promote their career development.
He spoke during the signing of the second-level Performance Contract for the 2024/2025 financial year, stressing that the process should go beyond formality and instead focus on setting measurable goals and monitoring progress.
Performance contracting requires specific performance targets together with systematic evaluation methods to determine organizational progress according to Mudavadi. According to him, signing contracts alone is not enough without systems to track results and evaluate success.
He explained that performance contracting needs both teamwork and continuous assessment because these two elements produce effective results and tracking outcomes enables organizations to understand their achievement status.
The Prime Cabinet Secretary voiced concern over the slow pace of enacting a law on performance contracting despite Kenya’s early achievements in the reform. He explained that the system reached its current state through enhancements made during President Mwai Kibaki’s administration which enabled Kenya to obtain international recognition through a United Nations public sector management excellence award.
The laws of performance contracting were developed into their present form by the United States after studying the Kenyan model. The United States established performance contracting as law after using Kenya’s model as a basis for its system.
He stated that Kenya who was the first country to develop the practice needs to stop its current consultations which have lasted for over twenty years. He identified the time period which extended over three separate presidential administrations starting from President Kibaki’s two terms continuing through former President Uhuru Kenyatta’s time in office and now entering President William Ruto’s initial term.
Mudavadi stated that Kenya must establish a legal framework for performance contracting because its absence would damage the country’s public sector development achievements. The situation demonstrates that the nation which once excelled at this practice now lags behind countries which have already established the practice through their legislation.
He said the proposed law should make performance contracting a standard measure for assessing civil servants and guiding promotions in order to reduce subjective decision-making.
Mudavi observed that public service dissatisfaction results from missing legal frameworks which cause officeholders to believe their long service has not received proper recognition from the system. He noted that employees have reported instances of promotions being awarded to others who lack any clear reason for their advancement.
He proposed that an open and traceable system would solve the problems while ensuring equitable treatment of all parties involved. He explained that establishing objective standards would eliminate all public misunderstandings which lead to perceptions of favoritism and biased decision-making.
Mudavi requested that those managing the bill should fast track its completion after public participation ends because he wants to avoid any further delays. The country must uphold all public service management reforms that began during President Kibaki’s government to protect its status as a public service management leader.
He stated that establishing the law will enable authorities to tackle institutional management deficiencies while enhancing their systems for tracking governmental duties.
Current performance contracting legislation requires stakeholders and citizens to provide feedback which will determine necessary changes for the upcoming draft. The next legislative phase will commence after this phase to establish performance contracting as the official assessment method for public service workers.
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