Three things are key for the incoming Cabinet Secretaries and other senior government officials. First, there is need to be guided by the economist Vilfredo Pareto who coined the Pareto principle in 1897, Pareto law, the 80/20 rule, the principle of Least Effort & Principle of Imbalance. In the book by Richard Koch on the same title, a foreword by Henry Ford notes that “God plays dice with the universe. But they are loaded dice. And the main objective is to find out by what rules they were loaded and how we can use them for our own ends”, hence as a CS and senior government official, find the rules that work. The major implication of the 80/20 principle is that for all occasions and purposes, 20 percent (vital few) of customers, products, programmes, projects and employees always produce 80 percent of the profits, successful, impactful programmes, projects and outputs. Conversely, the 80 percent (the trivial many) of the customers, products, programmes, projects and employees are responsible for only 20 percent of profits, earnings, productivity and outputs.
Secondly, every Ministry, Department and Agency (MDAs) has strategic plan (SP), prepared through thorough stakeholder engagement, discussions and planning to guide the operations and performance of the MDA for five years. SPs embed key strategic objectives and deliverables for each MDA and provide a good gauge for levels of service delivery and ensuring resource use and planning over the next five years to deliver impactful projects. MDAs have work plans which operationalize the SP for each year by providing detailed projects and activities. In addition, MDAs have Performance Contract (PC), which has six major aspects: financial stewardship; service delivery parameters; implementation of core mandate; implementation of presidential directives; implementation of affirmative action in procurement; cross cutting issues like asset management, youth internships and attachments, national values and principles of governance, competence development, mainstreaming of road safety. The strategic plan, workplans and performance contracts can provide a quick grasp of the MDA, and enable them to form opinions of what needs to be done or improved.
Thirdly, the CS and other senior officials need to incentivize the existing public and civil servants through creation of adequate feedback mechanisms with them. The CS will get a pool of highly trained and skilled workers who have accumulated knowledge and expertise on various issues for many years; such expertise and knowledge cannot be obtained from the advisors. Successful CS’s must work with the public/civil servants because the public sector has spent massive funds in training and skilling them hence highly knowledgeable on a wide range of issues. Dr Giti is an urban management, public – private partnerships (PPP) and environment specialist. mutegigiti@gmail.com , @danielgiti
Dr. Daniel Mutegi Giti 