Abstract:
Performance of sanitation projects in Kenya has continued to dwindle day in and day
out leading to delayed completion and cost overruns. Kiserian Township Sanitation
Project (KTSP) commenced in November 2015 and was planned to be completed by
May 2017. However, only 35% of the project was completed by the end of December
2018. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine stakeholders’ participation
and performance of the KTSP. The specific objectives were; to assess influence of
stakeholders’ participation in project initiation, planning, implementation and
monitoring and evaluation on the performance of KTSP. This study was anchored on
Freeman’s stakeholder theory (1984), legitimacy theory (1995), institutional theory
(1995) and measurement theory (2015). The study used two research design;
descriptive survey and correlation research design. The target population was 663
respondents that involved 600 Beneficiary’s household heads, 42 Appointed
contractor's employees, 15 Athi Water Service Board (AWSB) appointed employees, 5
Kajiado county government deployed officers and one (1) Appointed project consultant
selected through purposive sampling. The sample size of this study was 303
respondents comprising of 240 direct beneficiary’s household heads, 42 appointed
contractor's employees, 15 AWSB appointed employees, 5 Kajiado county government
deployed officers and one (1) appointed project consultant. Questionnaires were used
to obtain data from beneficiary’s household heads and appointed contractor’s
employees from their homes and workplaces respectively. Face-to-face interviews were
conducted for the AWSB appointed employees, Kajiado county government deployed
officers and appointed project consultant. A pilot study was carried out to check validity
and reliability of questionnaires in collecting the data required for the study on a
neighbouring water project in Ongata Rongai. SSPS (Version 23.0) was used to code,
enter and analyze information and generate reports. The data were analyzed
quantitatively using descriptive (mean, standard deviation & frequencies) and
inferential statistics (Pearson correlation & multiple linear regression). Qualitative data
was analyzed thematically. The study results, indicated that there was a positive
significant influence of stakeholders’ participation in project initiation (β=0.206,
p=0.008), project planning (β=0.223, p=0.006) and project implementation (β=0.143,
p=0.049), while, there was no significant influence of stakeholders’ participation in
monitoring and evaluation (β=0.098, p=0.174) on the performance of KTSP. However,
appointed contractor’s responses indicated that there is no significant influence of
stakeholders’ participation in project initiation (β=0.038, p=0.832), project planning
(β=0.110, p=0.631) project implementation (β=0.171, p=0.362) and monitoring and
evaluation (β=0.375, p=0.69) on the performance of KTSP. The qualitative result
indicated shows that there was a significant influence of stakeholders’ participation on
the performance of the KTSP. The study concludes that stakeholders’ participation had
a significant influence on the performance of the KTSP. It is recommended that
stakeholders need to be involved from project initiation, planning, implementation and
monitoring and evaluation to improve performance of Kiserian Sanitation Project.