Government retools public servants to improve service delivery

The government has begun a weeklong training programme for public servants aimed at enhancing the prompt delivery of services to the public.

The training, which targets officers at both regional and subcounty levels, also seeks to review development progress since the Kenya Kwanza government took office in 2022.

Speaking to the media at FK Resort in Nyeri on the sidelines of the regional forum, Central regional commissioner Joshua Nkanatha said the platform provided an ideal setting to ensure government departments work in harmony to achieve the objectives of the Bottom-up Economic Transformation Agenda.

Nkanatha noted that while the majority of Kenyans know about of government programmes, a significant number remain unaware of initiatives aimed at uplifting their living standards.

“This is a sensitisation workshop for heads of department at the regional level, consisting of officers from Interior, Housing, Roads, Education and MSMEs. All these departments are involved in implementing BETA, whose objective is to pull low-income earners into the middle level. We want to work together and make it possible for our people to move from one place to another since the roads are passable,” he explained.

“At the end of the day, we want to ensure this information is cascaded to the people on the ground since the majority are actually unaware of what we do,” he added.

Nkanatha also raised alarm over increasing cases of crop and livestock product theft, which he said were slowly creeping into parts of the region. He singled out the theft of pineapples, coffee and macadamia as among the leading targets and warned those involved to stop before government agencies caught up with them.

“Those who are stealing agricultural products are not doing so due to lack of employment. These are people who do not want to work and want to live off the sweat of other hard-working Kenyans. We shall not treat them as jobless people but criminals, and their final place of call is a court of law,” he warned.

The regional administrator also urged the public against resorting to suicide, instead encouraging them to seek help whenever they feel overwhelmed. He described taking one’s own life as self-defeatist.

His remarks followed a recent incident in which a woman allegedly took her life and that of her two children by plunging into River Chania in Nyeri. The middle-aged woman and her children had been missing since December 29, 2025, before their bodies were discovered in the river on January 18.

“As a Government, we urge our people not to wait until they are overwhelmed by life’s challenges to the point of taking their own lives and those of their loved ones. Anyone undergoing a traumatic experience should seek out someone they can confide in. If the matter is beyond friends, let us approach any government officer for help and spare our lives and those of our loved ones,” Nkanatha advised.