As part of its effort and commitment to improve service delivery in public service, the government introduced what are now known as “Huduma Centres” to enhance efficiency in service delivery. The first Huduma Centre was launched at the Teleposta Towers along Nairobi’ Kenyatta Avenue and more were soon launched in various centres in and around the city, as well in different towns across the country. There are plans, government says in a welcome move, to roll out as many as 20 more.
At the launch of the very first one, it was lauded as a programme that would transform the country’s deficient public service sector by providing citizens access to a one-stop shop that would offer various services through an integrated technology platform.
The centres were a leap in the right direction. Where it took months to replace vital documents such as driving licences, national identification cards and passports, the waiting period could be anything from several hours to one or two days. What could be called “front office” staff is extremely courteous and the service providers themselves very helpful. They are not the civil servants we have grown up knowing.
And the centres do make a lot of sense, particularly where government services are hard to find and where it would be too expensive to put up different ministries and government agencies. Instead of, for example, putting up eighteen ministry branches in West Pokot or in Mandera, such one-stop shops present the best alternative – fewer material and human resources.
What doesn’t make sense, however, is to have these centres in the capital Nairobi, where all government functions are also based. Why, for instance, should immigration services be shared between Nyayo House and the Huduma Centre at the Teleposta Tower, about one hundred metres away? Economists will tell us that shared roles and duties increase the risk of administrative duplication and overlap and result in higher administrative costs, create the risk of obscured accountability, and increase opportunities for cost shifting.
More importantly, they can cause a reduction in the efficiency, effectiveness and equity of service delivery and, ultimately, may erode the gains they are supposed to create. A better alternative here would be to streamline the mandates of related public service providers through consolidating various entities and reassigning staff where it calls for such, or doing away with some of them altogether.
For, although it may be appropriate for multiple government agencies to carry out the same function or engage in the same policy area owing to the nature of mandates in a bid to facilitate government effort, there also exist opportunities within the same realm to achieve cost savings while upholding service delivery.
The Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) has made it a priority to contain government spending, streamline operations and improve efficiency in the delivery of service; to that end, it has waged an aggressive campaign to eliminate duplication and waste. But it would be an act of pretence if we embraced policy recommendations by the SRC on the one hand and looked the other way when rabbit holes such as duplication of roles are left unaddressed.
Last year, the president and his deputy, as well as several cabinet secretaries and legislators, offered to take pay cuts in what they said were their contributions in government’s seemingly austerity stance then. Because of the history of the huge salaries drawn by top government and public officials, the sincerity of those actions, particularly in light of the fact that legislators had hiked their salaries the previous year, remains a matter of debate; however, the novelty of such “selfless” acts in a country where members of county assemblies spent over Sh4 billion in overseas trips in 2014, speaks directly to the issue of public accountability and responsibility.
For our country looking to make progress in the 21st century economy, we need a 21st century government, which means leaner spending, better efficiency, accountability and continuous austerity. Government must be willing to meet the economic and social needs of its people, as well as embrace technological and industry demands to remain competitive globally.
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