Factors Affecting Performance Of Government Budget Officers Of Public Finance In Kenya

Abstract

Although the Government of Kenya (GoK) has been undertaking a various public sector reform measures to improve its performance, there has been poor performance of the budget function resulting from the poor performance of the budget officers Over time the Government of Kenya has not been able to enhance budget officer performance by addressing the factors leading to employee satisfaction and this resulted to poor work performance by these officers. The lack of satisfaction on budget officers caused by their poor performance leads their poor work performance and ineffective budgets and is attributable to; work environment, salary and allowances, job security, and individual related factors (IRF). Although studies have been conducted globally, regionally, and locally on employee performance, there is scanty information that explains the performance of budget officers in public sector of Kenya as being influenced by; their work environment, salary and allowances, job security, and individual related factors jointly. The concerns raised by this status of affairs drove the need to conduct the present study with the goal of filing this knowledge gap and make recommendation to ensure that performance of the budget officer in Kenya is commendable and the budgets are effective. The main objective was to assess the factors affecting performance of Government budget officers in Kenya. The study target population was the 82 budget officers of public service in Kenya and the study used census where the entire population participated as respondents. The study collected primary data by the administration of a structured questionnaire. The questionnaire was personally delivered to the respondents, who were assisted in filling. Data was analysed using descriptive statistics and inferential analysis, where the study analysed with assistance of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) ver. 20.0. Inferential statistics was useful in estimating a study model, where using multiple regressions the study established the relationship that exists between independent variables and the dependent variable. The study findings reveals that; work environment highly affects the employee performance; Salary and allowances highly affects the employee performance; job security highly affects the employee performance and individual related factors moderately affect employee performance. The study recommends that the Government of Kenya should; ensure a conducive work environment for its budget officers to ensure that their; review the salary and allowances of its budget officer to enhance or improve their performance; ensure that the job security of budget officers in Kenya is ensured to influence their performance. The study further recommends that budget officers in Kenya should handle and manage their individual related factors, which might affect their performance. Further studies should be conducted to establish the extent to which the factors; Work environment, salary and incentives, job security, and individual related factors influence the employee performance using quantitative data