Stalled projects biggest failure of devolution - report

Stalled projects is the biggest failure of the devolved system of governance, a new perception survey has shown.

The County Governance Status Report 2025 by Transparency International listed the incomplete projects top among the failures, followed by waste of cash in paying excess staff, corruption, delay in paying staff and unequal sharing of county service and development between wards.

“When asked to identify key challenges or failures in the devolved governance, respondents highlighted five main issues. The most mentioned was the problem of incomplete or/ stalled projects cited by 29.8 per cent of participants," the report released on Thursday says.

"There were concerns that counties initiate a large number of projects leaving many unfinished.” 

It added that the high incidence of incomplete projects was also attributed to leadership failing to adopt and complete the projects initiated by the previous administrations.

The county executives also blame the delayed disbursements from the National Treasury and legal challenges related to procurement for the incomplete works.

“Slightly more than a fifth of the respondents (22%) identified excessive staffing as a significant failure. This could most likely imply that a large part of budgetary allocations is directed to staff costs rather than service delivery. Corruption and mismanagement were identified as an obstacle by 20.8 per cent,” it added.

The report also points to a high awareness of initiation of local projects by residents.

When asked if they were aware of any county projects occurring in their locality, 60.2 per cent of the citizens answered in the affirmative, indicating improved interest in public participation and access to information.

However, those aware of the projects didn’t know the cost.

A vast majority at 93.5 per cent of the respondents said they were not aware of the cost of the projects. It was also observed that only 22.7 per cent of the respondents with knowledge about local projects had an idea of the completion date. On the contrary, nearly 80 per cent of them did not have this information.

“The low levels of awareness on project costs undermines residents’ ability to provide civic oversight, as they lack the requisite information to hold the county or the contractors to account. Furthermore, these widespread ignorance could also be an indication of lack of transparency in project implementation at the county level,” the report said.

However, majority of the respondents at 32.4 per cent said among the successes of devolution was improved service delivery, while 27.9 per cent cited closer proximity of services was the greatest success of devolved system.

The TI study corroborates Auditor General's report for the 2023-24 financial year, which highlighted stalled or poorly executed projects across various counties, resulting in substantial financial losses. 

The report revealed billions of shillings have been lost due to mismanagement, inflated costs and irregular procurements related to these projects.

Nearly all counties were found to have projects that have either stalled or been poorly executed.

Some first-term governors appear to have abandoned initiatives started by their predecessors, further worsening the situation.

For instance, in Machakos county, 54 projects valued at Sh1.13 billion were found to have stalled, while 10 projects in Kakamega valued at Sh7.24 billion that started in 2014-15 were still incomplete. By the time of the study, Sh3.14 billion had been sunk into the projects.

In Meru, two projects worth Sh36.88 million had stalled, and others worth Sh206.53 million in Samburu, projects