The Role Of Huduma Center In Advancing Citizen Centered Service Delivery In Narok County

Abstract

ABSTRACT Huduma Kenya Program is a Kenya Vision 2030 flagship project captured under the Mid Term plan for 201-2017. The program was launched by the President of the Republic of Kenya on 7th November 2013. The aim of the Huduma Kenya program is to enhance the access and delivery of Government services to all Kenyans. In this research, the researcher looked at how huduma center has made service delivery more effective and efficient towards the Public. The study was aimed at establishing the role of huduma center in advancing citizen-centered service delivery in Narok County. Three research objectives guided the study. Research objective one sought to determine how issuance of national documents at huduma center has enhanced service delivery amongst residents of Narok county, research objective two sought to examine the influence of business registration by huduma center in service delivery amongst residents of Narok county and research objective three sought to establish if huduma centers influence transparency in public service delivery amongst residents of Narok county. A review of literature was conducted to determine the existing knowledge gap on the role of huduma center in advancing citizencentered service delivery. The study was guided by theoretical framework of SERVQUAL MODEL developed by Parasuraman et al (1985, 1988 and 1994). The SERVQUAL instrument was originally measured on ten (10) aspects or dimensions of service quality: reliability, responsiveness, competence, access, courtesy, communication, credibility, security, understanding, and tangibles (Parasuraman et al 1985) as a means of measuring the gap between customer expectation and experience. The study adopted a descriptive survey design. The sample comprised of 86 respondents. To arrive at a representative sample used in the study, Nassiuma’s (2009) formula was used. Data was collected by use of questionnaires, Focused Group Discussions and was analyzed by the use of qualitative and quantitative techniques then presented using frequency tables and standard deviation tables. The data collected from questionnaires was cleaned, coded and analyzed by the use of frequency tables and standard deviation tables by the help of Microsoft Excel spread sheet computer programs. The findings show that more respondents (80.3%) of the respondents either agreed or strongly agreed that transparency was improved as compared to (18.3%) who disagreed that transparency was not improved by huduma centers. Findings also show that (47.9%) of the respondents either strongly agreed or agreed that huduma centers have enabled businesses to access credit facilities, (63.4%) of the respondents believed that huduma centers had improved business access to legal protection and (63.4%) respondents agreed that huduma centers had worked to reduce and partially eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy in the provision of government services as compared to the number who opposed which was almost negligible at (9.8%). (76.1%) agreed that huduma centers greatly reduced distance travelled to secure national documents while (84.5%) of the respondents agreed that huduma centers had reduced costs of securing government services while (66.3%) of the respondents agreed that services at huduma centers took comparatively short time as opposed to (4.2%) of the respondents who strongly disagreed that the time taken to be served significantly reduced after the introduction of huduma center services. (69.0%) of the respondents either strongly agreed or agreed that huduma centers has provided the masses with knowledge of other government services they did not know as opposed to (12.5%) of the respondents who disagreed. Based on the findings, the study concluded that huduma centers has greatly reduced the distance travelled and costs incurred to secure documents and services offered by the government, that huduma centers has provided the masses with knowledge of other government services they did not know.