Implement government projects better to minimise wastage of funds

Statistics abound from various agencies on the state of Kenya’s project implementation status in the past five years, with many of the projects facing myriad challenges. According to the Project Management Institute, projects may be classified as successful if they meet all the criteria defined at the projects’ initiation. Projects are challenged when they meet only part of the set criteria while failed projects struggle to meet any of the set criteria, and it is the latter projects that culminate into white elephants which denotes abandoned projects.

From the outset, it is important to note that projects are initiated after a well thought out needs assessment and go through a justification process in order to determine their feasibility, viability and practicability. However, along the projects’ lifecycle phases, many factors, both internal to government and from the external environment, come into play to torpedo the prior planning that usually goes into these projects.

Kenya has had a mixed bag of results in terms of project completion rates. In the first half of 2024, reports by the Auditor General indicated that stalled projects, which were spread across 10 counties and worth Sh12.03 billion had stalled, others had fallen behind schedule, and yet many other projects had been abandoned altogether. Some other projects were completed but left idle, thereby not affording the public value for their taxes.