Thursday, August 26, 2010

Ministry of Agriculture Performance Contracting Celebrations

The Ministry of Agriculture scored position two out of the 45 government ministries during the performance contracting* of 2008/2009 financial year. Therefore, it was only logical that celebrations had to be in the works.
The performance contracting celebrations were held at Bomas of Kenya grounds, Nairobi on August 18th 2010. The chief guest for these celebrations was Minister of State for Public Service, Mr. Dalmas Otieno with the Minister for Agriculture, Dr. Sally J. Kosgey playing the host of the celebrations.

Key Highlights
  • Dr. Kosgei disclosed that out of the ministry’s budget of close to ksh18billion, most of it came from the 16 donor community (I believe most of this comes from the EU block).
  • The Ministry of Agriculture will continue to provide relief seeds and fertilizer to vulnerable farmers across the country so as to achieve food security and market the surplus for their income.
  • The Ministry of Agriculture contributed over ksh222billion to the GDP from the horticulture sector, 68billion from tea and a further 10billion from coffee earnings.


The Permanent Secretary, Dr. Romano Kiome, who is the unsung hero of this transformation taking place in the Agriculture sector assured the staff that the ministry that he was addressing technical staff shortage (one of the main problems of this Ministry) and those who had stagnated on one job group for long (another big problem).
He directed extension staff to ensure they armed themselves with business plan every time they visited farmers, so that they were sensitized the need to take ‘farming as business’.

He further added; “The ministry has developed seven fundamentals of management for use both by the staff and State Corporations to achieve the desired results’’. The ministry of agriculture has developed and signed the contract since 2005. Despite the challenges, it has managed to cascade the contract to all departments including field stations, state corporations and projects/programmes.

*Performance contracting is part of the wider public Sector Reform and Development programme implemented by the government across all ministries and other agencies that was supported by EU in a bid to transform the public sector.

Links


Photos:
Welcome to Bomas

Car Park

Camp Bomas

Bomas


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