Communication in Enhancing Citizen Participation: Case Study of Implementation of Parking Fee in Nairobi City County

Abstract

This study focused on the communication in enhancing citizen participation. To measure this, the study examined the level of citizen involvement in the implementation of increased parking fee in Nairobi County. Communication has been revealed in this study not to have a positive impact in enhancing citizen participation. The study was guided by three objectives; to determine the level of awareness of the residents concerning the parking fee, to establish communication methods used to influence accessibility of parking charges information, and to determine the influence of participatory communication on the quality of information on parking charges. The theories upon which this study was grounded were structural functionalism theory and participatory democratic theory. The methodology that was employed in this study was simple random sampling to identify the constituencies within Nairobi County to be included in the study and systematic random sampling for the identification of individual respondents included in the study. The findings of this study reveal that the Nairobi City County Government did not encourage citizen participation in the decision to increase parking fee. It is concluded that the lack of citizen participation in the decision to increase parking fee was majorly due to lack of effective and functional communication. The study thus recommends that stronger communication mechanisms should be installed and be well integrated in the system to ensure feedback oriented mechanisms. It further suggests that NCCG policy makers and strategic management team should ensure implementation of system that ensures full citizen participation in its key decision making; this can be achieved through engaging point men at critical decision making stages