Influence of Governance Conflict Between National Goverment and County Goverment on Public Administrartion Perfomance; a Case Study of Tana River Sub-County

Abstract

The members of an organization's governing body set policies and continuously oversee their appropriate execution. The purpose of the study was to assess the influence of governance conflict between the national government and county government on public administration performance; a case study of Tana River Sub-County. The objectives of the study were to establish the source of conflict between the national government and county government, to determine the challenges faced by public administrators in the Tana River sub-county and to establish the conflict mitigation strategies that can be used to alleviate the conflicts between national and county governments in the Tana River sub-county. The study was emboldened under two theories; Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) Structural Functionalism Theory and the Classical Theory of Management. This study will utilize a descriptive survey design. The target population was comprised of national government administrators, and county government administrators, in the Tana River sub-county, whose total number is 64. The researcher conducted a census by using the entire population because it is appropriate for the study. Self-administered open–ended questionnaires was used in collecting primary data from the respondents. To examine this relationship, Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient was computed. As a first step in the coding process, the collected questionnaires were sorted for completeness. After they have been coded, they were imported into SPSS version 20 for statistical analysis. Tables were used for data presentation. The study concluded that there is a lot of policy conflict between the national government and county government since there is no order priorities between the national government and county government. There is a power struggle between the national government and county government officials. There is an underfunding problem which causes a lack of trust and cooperation between both government officials. The study recommended that; there should be resource sharing among the national government and county government also there should try and resolve policy conflicts between them and priorities between them should change. There should be a nice intergovernmental consultation between the national government and county government officials.