The Local Authority Service Delivery Action Plan (LASDAP) is an annual investment plan for the LA, developed through a participatory planning
process involving various stakeholder groups
and citizens resident within a local author- ity. The stakeholders include self-help groups, business organisations, residents associations (including those in informal settlements), re- ligious groups, educational and health institu- tions, professional organisations, NGOs and individual residents. Although LAs facilitate the process, the final product is owned by all the stakeholders and communities involved (MoLG 2009).
The LASDAP process is based on resources de- fined in a resource envelope that forms part of the budget in all local authorities. The resource envelope may be adjusted to include other re- sources which are formally committed by com- munities and partner organisations during the consultation process.
The Local Authorities Transfer Fund (LATF), established in 1999, involves a transfer of 5% (in FY2009-2010) of national income tax to lo- cal authorities to supplement the financing of services and facilities as mandated to them in
the Local Government Act (Cap. 265). The pur-
pose of the LATF is to enable LAs to improve
and extend service delivery to citizens, to im- prove financial management and debt resolu- tion. Preparation of a LASDAP is one of the five
criteria of the LATF Performance Component
as contained in Legal Notice 142 dated 10th September 1999. To address this, all LAs are re- quired to develop with the help of stakeholders a LASDAP, setting out the priorities for improv- ing delivery of local services (MoLG 2009). The projects identified through a stakeholder process are then subjected to a technical evalu- ation committee of the LA to test for feasibility in terms of planning and technical standards. The LASDAP guidelines provide for the co-op- tion of technical skills from line Ministries and departments of the mainstream civil service, provided the LA does not have these capacities in-house.
Notwithstanding, these arrangements in the Guidelines, most LAs continue to implement the regulations inadequately, with a poor (of- ten absent) participatory approach, technical committees ignoring the demands from citi- zens, sometimes with the undue influence of civic leaders. The main result of this misman- agement is the selection and allocation of tax- payers’ money to projects that are the priority
of the officials and politicians in power rather than addressing the needs of the citizens (MoLG 2008). Inadequate technical backstop- ping (support, monitoring of project manage- ment, including LASDAP) by the Ministry in general and its Urban Development Depart- ment in particular does not help either.
4.4 Contracting Commitment
The process of procuring construction services in LASDAP entails several critical steps as cur- rently practised in LAs. The LASDAP guidelines expressly provide for these steps. Contracting commitments include, inter alia, the prepara- tion of technical drawings (architectural and engineering), tender documents, advertising, and evaluation of bids and selection of con- tractors.As mentioned in the public sector procure- ment section above, there are many flaws in this critical process in LAs. Preparation of
technical drawings and tender documents in
LAs for the purpose of LASDAP often does not meet the standard. In many cases design and preparation of technical drawings are not given a professional touch. In some extreme instanc- es, construction services are procured without any drawings whatsoever. There are also cases where construction services are procured using wrong drawings and technical specifications
that do not relate to the contracted site. Put- ting together the bills of quantities is seldom thoroughly done: often not based on the draw- ings and the site conditions resulting in missing items, wrong quantities and poor description of works. Engineers’ cost projections for the project are sometimes grossly underestimated with serious implications for the overall project financial administration.
The bidding process is replete with political interference, as confirmed by the RPRLGSP field workers (RSDAs) during their field work with local authorities. Councillors have been known to attempt to award contracts to non- deserving relatives and friends leading to the abandonment of many projects midstream. Critical contracting requirements such as bid bonds are routinely ignored at the behest of LA officials pursuing vested interests. Thus in the overall, project administration is lacking, par- ticularly the critical checks required at the con- tracting commitment stage leading to many inconsistencies.
Community contracting, although a much tout- ed idea, has yet to gain acceptance in the LG sector. The only form of community contracting that seems to work is sub-contracting aspects of the contract that do not require skills such as supplying water, sand and similar materials.
4.5 Implementation
The implementation phase of LASDAP in LAs
begins with the conclusion of a procurement
plan. The general practise observed in many lo- cal authorities is that this phase tends to be the beginning of the end for the participation of other stakeholders. Even at the LA level itself, other non-technical actors find themselves routinely excluded from the decision-making process. There is established a common trend
that once the site has been handed over to the
contractors, not much participation is allowed, and all this is by design. In effect, the intended
watchdog role of the community and other
stakeholders is often undermined. Although
safeguards such as performance bonds are
provided for in the contract documents, these are seldom enforced during the project imple- mentation phase.
Supervision is mostly inadequate, and is oc-
casioned by lack of professional and technical
expertise. This is further compounded by fi- nancial constraints, poor equipment and non- availability of transport and logistics. There is no routine testing of materials for performance as a standard requirement for adherence to specifications.
It is at the stage of implementation that ser- vice delivery projects suffer further setbacks.
Contractors have been known to try to in- crease their profit margins by executing sub- standard work. This is sometimes done with the connivance of technical officers and civic leaders. Many officers who have insisted on a
professional approach have rued their decision
and have encountered hostility and negative branding, threats and even outright removal of project management.
Councillors are among the most constraining
factors in the process of project implementa- tion. They have been reported to threaten contractors with termination as a means of ex- acting bribes from them. Councillors have also
been known to insist that contractors employ their supporters notwithstanding their lack of
appropriate qualifications needed to perform the tasks at hand.
Site organisation and management is often very poor and few mechanisms exist to deal with this issue in LAs. Municipal officials in charge of projects hardly insist on this aspect with the consequence that sites are insecure and unsafe and do not meet many public health require- ments. Workplans although mandatory in all projects are not always available and displayed making it difficult to monitor progress.
Financial administration during implementa-
tion is an enormous challenge to most LAs. Serious bottlenecks are routinely experienced between the disbursement function of the
Treasury and the technical team supervising
projects. Certificates are delayed inordinately without proper justification. Certificates that
are prepared on the basis of incorrect bills of
quantities or unmeasured works lead to false payments and frequent disagreements be- tween Treasury and the technical team. More- over, certificates are falsified to allow for pay- ments which are not due.
Adequate project reporting is rarely done in many of councils making it difficult for any meaningful monitoring and evaluation to take place. Project history does not exist in many projects to allow for proper succession and auditing of activities. When officers are trans- ferred, little remains in terms of institutional memory to assist incoming officials on their new jobs.
Projects implemented by UDD are not sub- jected to the participatory LASDAP process and quite often do not involve co-ordination with the local authorities for whom they are being carried out.
4.6 Monitoring and Evaluation
Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) are rare ac-tivities at the Local Authorities. Often, no ar-
rangements are in place at the local authority
level to track progress in the many projects they implement since the introduction of the LASDAP approach to service delivery. Although the LASDAP guidelines for 2005 recognise the importance of M&E and the role of stakehold- ers, particularly communities in M&E, little of this has been demonstrated in the field. Top-
down monitoring is conducted periodically
by officials from the Ministry of Local Gov- ernment. Their objectives tend to emphasise the more financial audit aspects rather than tracking progress against planned activities in a clearly defined project cycle.
The monitoring and evaluation function is not well coordinated at the ministerial level, and between the Ministry and the local authorities. The Central Planning Unit does not co-ordinate with the Urban Development Department and with the KLGRP. On the other hand, the three bodies do not co-operate with local authorities in the co-ordination of LASDAP, including its monitoring and evaluation. The effectiveness of the M&E efforts has been further hampered by budgetary constraints at the Ministerial level.
One of the critical components of a project evaluation is the Value for Money audit (VfM).
Such VfM audit incorporates the assessment of the output, outcome and socio-economic impact of the projects, and includes a techni- cal audit on cost-effectiveness. Unfortunately,
this is a concept completely unknown in the
Kenyan LA service delivery practice. In the ab- sence of such audit, the LAs and other imple- menting agents get away with “double fund- ing”, in which they claim to have spent their project funds on project components that are
actually funded by other funds!
Other issues related to the non-performance of M&E include lack of institutional capacity, mainly technical and financial in LAs, lack of political goodwill, and the emphasis on finan-
cial aspects as opposed to a whole range of rel- evant M&E project attributes.
As a consequence of the weak monitoring and evaluation regime currently obtaining in the LA sector, there has been massive project failures both in the local authorities implementing LAS- DAP projects, in the Urban Development De- partment, and also CDF. The evidence is in the
huge number of stalled and incomplete service
delivery projects that dot the local authority landscape countrywide.