Determinants of Implementation of County Government Projects: a Case of Infrastructural Projects in Kilifi County, Kenya.

Abstract

Infrastructural projects contribute towards the socioeconomic development of a country and individuals due to improved standard of living. County governments in Kenya have been implementing infrastructural projects since 2013 and several projects have been implemented since devolution following the implementation of the constitution of Kenya in 2010. Nevertheless, the implementation of these projects has been facing various challenges countrywide leading to having abandoned projects, incomplete projects and unutilized completed projects all of which are signs of poor project planning and implementation. The purpose of the study was to determine the determinants of implementation of infrastructure projects in Kilifi County so as to draw lessons that can help improve project implementation and was guided by the following objectives: First to examine how project manager competency influence implementation of infrastructural projects.Secondly,to determine how community participation influence implementation of infrastructural projects. Thirdly, to examine how project certification influence implementation of infrastructural projects and lastly to examine how project funding influence implementation of infrastructural projects. A survey of literature indicated that implementation of infrastructural projects experiences a number of influences including project manager‘s competency, community participation in projects identification and implementation, project certification and project funding in prioritization of projects. The study analysed the determinants of project implementation in Kilifi County specifically. The study adopted a descriptive survey design using questionnaires which were a quick way of obtaining information and cost effective within a short period of time over a target population of 60 from three sub counties in Kilifi County and the return rate was 83.33%. Purposive sampling technique was used to target all the target population because of technical knowhow with data collected analysed using statistical packages for social sciences (SPSS) 20.0.Spearman Rank Co-efficient was used to test the hypotheses .The findings of the study showed that Project managers‘ competency to be an effective strategy in implementation of infrastructure project in Kilifi County with community participation in project implementation of the infrastructural projects builds trust and reduce resistance to implementation of the projects by the local community in Kilifi County. This is the reason that improved relationships among stakeholders was observed after carrying out participation of local community on projects implementation of infrastructure projects in Kilifi county. Project certification also showed to determine the implementation of infrastructure projects in Kilifi County with experienced certified project managers effective on implementation strategies that would ensure projects success hence making them better placed in terms of project implementation than uncertified project managers without similar experiences. Project funding showed a positive relationship in terms of implementation of the infrastructure projects in Kilifi County and the relationship was significant at 0.05. This was seen as either funding is availed in good time, sufficient as well as good flow of funds in the projects to finance project activities. The study recommended that all the four factors should be embraced in project implementation and suggested for further research.