Poor attitudes and lack of induction undermine service provision

Many service seekers in the Lands Ministry probably assume that all officers are unfriendly rent seekers. But that’s not true! There are indeed some good hardworking officers who, despite the daily drama and intrigues in Lands, maintain a fairly level headed professional mien while serving. I have met them in the Planning Department and in Survey of Kenya. And even in the dreaded Lands Department, there are some honest and reliable clerks and professionals. But, proportionately, they are few. And most are shy to speak out and hence aren’t able to effectively influence policy and practice.

During routine service seeking, I have met with the face of the newly recruited officers at professional and clerical level. Most times, I shake my head in disbelieve, wondering how things got this bad. At times I have had to just laugh it off. Here are guys who don’t find anything odd in getting late or even snubbing customers when in office. Their mobile phones receive more attention than customers, and seemingly without regret. Then there is this rather surprising attitude of playing boss to all service seekers, and imagining that there must be something in it for them for any service rendered. And this cuts through most offices in the head office and the counties, and even the land commission. The land commission surprises a lot more since it was meant to have pre-vetted new staff. But there isn’t much difference……..indeed, some think it is a lot worse. This poor attitude and behavior has continued to tarnish the image and name of the Lands Ministry and Commission, the two key institutional platforms responsible for managing the access to and protection of land rights in Kenya. Besides, land transactions end up negatively affected.

It’s good to appreciate the current commitment and efforts towards the digitization of records and computerization of processes. Automated processes cut down on human interaction and should ultimately reduce timelines and customer agony. Ongoing efforts to shuffle around Ministry staff as reported recently in our media are encouraging, but perhaps not enough. Some of the rather innocent looking junior and middle level officers not targeted for movements easily help to continue old practices. And the integrity of computer processes hang around data input, updates, and protection. With unreliable, low integrity folks at the controls, computer services and results are easily manipulated. The bottom line for the improvement of services in all the service points therefore hangs around a focused, motivated, well inducted, informed and supervised staff. And they must be routinely held to account on the basis of targets and customer feedback. But are they?

Timelines and targets help to measure performance

Anecdotal surveys and experience reveals not. At one time I sought to find out from a clerk what the timeline for processing some simple subdivision survey record under the Ministry’s service charter was and got the curt response “What is that?” It’s on public record too that one of the previous Cabinet Secretary’s got rudely surprised to find that land registrars on duty weren’t equipped with the new constitution and land laws while on a routine visit to one of the county offices. So then they can’t be apt! I haven’t ever met anyone in the Planning, Lands or Survey offices at any one time agonizing that they haven’t met their daily or weekly targets, something I remember used to happen in the Ministry as a matter of routine years earlier. Meeting targets would earn one praise or censure, and ultimately influence an officer’s stagnation or upward mobility.

It is also true that newly recruited officers never obtain any structured induction and mentoring nowadays, but are left to learn by observation and intuition. Little wonder they make avoidable mistakes, quickly embrace rent seeking and have a poor appreciation of the guiding policy, laws and procedures. They are left to get their way around without baselines and mentors to rely on. That’s why I at times shake my head in surprise at some of the things they do. It’s easy to appreciate that they must have missed out on very fundamental guidance.

More attention needed on human resource base

One gets the impression that no matter what money or equipment we throw at Lands, we will continue to face fundamental challenges on attitudes, style, quality and accountability provided we leave the human resource base without a central guiding compass. A compass that ensures that every new officer understands the ethics, standards, customer attitudes and accountability expected of them! For technical officers, an appreciation of the guiding policy, constitutional and legal frameworks that drive the sector! This could be ensured through structured induction courses for the newly recruited and a subsequent mentoring programme in each department. The middle level and senior technical officers need regular refresher courses to bring them abreast with operational policies and laws, and their periodic amendments. They need to understand the changing regional and global policies and their implications to our national space. And all the officers must be kept accountable to targets and performance through a consistent reward and punishment mechanism.