Effect of Huduma Centers (One Stop Shops) in Service Delivery– A Case Study of Mombasa Huduma Centre

Abstract

Historically, the Government of Kenya has grappled with the problem of poor service delivery in its public service. The government in the early 1990s tried a range of interventions to remedy this situation. The Government retrenched more than 100,000 civil servants but had only a negligible impact on the effectiveness or efficiency of the civil service. The Government then introduced results-oriented management, but by 2005 nothing much had come out of it. In 2013, the government introduced the concept of Huduma Centres, to transform public service delivery by providing citizens access to various public services and information. It aims to provide efficient government services at the convenience of the citizen by amalgamating related services within one building, possibly on the same floor, effectively making it possible for service seekers to access it conveniently. However, many questions have been raised on whether Huduma centres have added any value to service delivery. The study, therefore, seeks to assess the effect of Huduma centres in service delivery to the public. The main objective of this study was to analyze the effect of Huduma Centres in service delivery within Mombasa town. The specific objectives of the study were; to establish if Huduma Centres influence transparency in service delivery; to assess if they enhance reliability of government services, and to determine if the centres result in customer satisfaction in government service delivery.