Factors Influencing Implementation Of Street Lights In Kenya: A Case Of Machakos County

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to investigate factors influencing implementation of Street lights in Kenya; A case of Machakos County. This study was guided by the following objectives to; establish the extent to which vandalism influences implementation of Street lights projects in Machakos County; determine how monitoring and evaluation influences implementation of Street lights projects in Machakos County; to examine how Operation and Maintenance influence implementation of Street lights projects in Machakos County and to investigate how budgetary allocation influence implementation of Street lights in Machakos County. According to the studies which have been conducted none of the studies has focused Machakos County. Therefore this study intended to fill the knowledge gap on factors influencing implementation of Street lights in Kenya. Theories which were used in this study were; Instrumental Stakeholders’ theory and Project management theory. This study employed a descriptive survey research design because the method has the potential to provide a lot of information from quite a large sample of individuals. The total target population was 175 with a sample size of 122. In this case the sample selected is deemed to be representative enough of the whole population and therefore valid and genuine generalizations can be made. Data was collected using questionnaires which were administered to the respondent by the researcher and his assistants. The researcher analyzed the quantitative data via descriptive and inferential statistics statistics using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS V.25) and the findings presented in percentages, means, standard deviations and frequencies. Data analysis was guided by the correlation models. Research findings were presented in tabular format, and ruled that there is a strong correlation between monitoring & evaluation (p=0.497>0.05), operation and maintenance (p=0.659>0.05), vandalism (p=0.978>0.05) and weak correlation between budgetary allocation (p=0.000<0.05) and implementation of Street lights projects. This study therefore recommends that county governments in Kenya should involve and consult all stakeholders before the start and throughout project implementation process, introduce strong anti-vandalism measures and set enough budgets for both implementation and maintenance of streetlights.