Influence of Community Participation on the Implementation of Constituency Development Fund Projects in Public Day Secondary Schools in Nyeri central Subcounty, Kenya

Abstract

Constituency Development Fund is a devolved fund established by Constituency Development Fund Act (2003) with an aim of taking development to the citizens at the grassroot level within the shortest time.The Act went through amendments and finally replaced with Constituency Development Fund Act (2013) in order to align the Act to the major provisions of the constitution of Kenya (2010) including transparency and accountability, separation of powers and participation of the people. However, the slow implementation of the projects is a cause for concern.It is on this basis that this study aimed at investigating the influence of community participation on the implementation of Constituency Development Fund projects in Public Day Secondary Schools in Nyeri Central Sub-County, in Nyeri County. The objectives of the study are to;establish the influence of community particpation in decision making; establish the influence community‟s resource mobilization;find out the influence of community‟s monitoring and evaluation and to determine the influence of community participation in procurement processon the the implementation of Constituency Development Fund projects in Public Day Schools in Nyeri-Central Sub-county,Nyeri County.The study was informed by stakeholder‟s theory.The study adopted a descriptive survey design. The target populationwas 649 form four parents in the 10 Public Day Schools that have benefited from Constituency Development Fund, four chiefs and 50 project management committee members.Purposive and simple random sampling were used to select respondents.A sample of 144 respondents were targeted. Data was collected using a close ended questionnaire and interview guides.Reliability of the instrumentwas examined using split half technique.Validity was done by the experts in the department of project planning and management in the University of Nairobi as well as peer reviewing. Quantitative data was analysed and presented in tables of frequencies and percentages withthe help of the Statistical Package for Social sciences (version 20). Qualitative data was content analysed.The study found that the community is not fully involved in decision making in CDF projects as projected in the statutory provisions. On resource mobilization the study concluded that community participation is low and mainly restricted to labor and materials. The study also found that community is inadequately engaged in monitoring and evaluation. The study also concluded that communities are not fully engaged in procurement process whose procedures are often flouted. The study recommends that members of the community should be enlightened on their role in decision making in regard to CDF project, not only in project identification but in the entire project cycle. This study recommended that the CDF Act to be amended to remove ambiguity on the role of communities in CDF project resource mobilization as well as provided for an independent body in which the communities would be represented to effectively monitor project implementation. The study also recommends that to effectively involving communities in the procurement process, representatives of public procurement authority should be part of the CDF tender committee to ascertain inclusion of various stakeholders as well as ensure procurement procedures are followed to the letter. The study will help to policy makers to understand to what extent are communities involved in the implementation of the Constituency Development Projects for the purposes of needs based interventions.