A new survey has placed Interior Principal Secretary Dr Raymond Omollo as the best performing senior bureaucrat in government, highlighting wide disparities in delivery across ministries in President William Ruto’s administration.
The ranking, which evaluates Principal Secretaries on policy execution, innovation, and integrity, is part of a performance assessment by Politrack Africa released on Friday.
Dr Omollo scored 69.7 percent to emerge top, credited to his role in coordinating national administration functions, policy execution, and inter-agency collaboration within a docket that oversees critical service delivery, security operations and public administration.
Sports Principal Secretary Elijah Mwangi and TVET PS Dr Esther Muhoria followed closely, scoring 67.2 percent and 65.5 percent respectively. Housing and Urban Development PS Charles Hinga and Basic Education PS Amb. Prof. Julius Bitok completed the top five, with scores of 64.1 percent and 62.8 percent.
According to the report, the evaluation was based on a weighted scoring system, with the largest focus on core mandate delivery and operational excellence, accounting for 40 percent of the total score. This included achievement of targets, quality of outputs, timely delivery of projects and budget discipline.
Strategic leadership and national impact accounted for 30 percent, assessing alignment with flagship government programmes such as the Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda, Vision 2030 and sectoral policies around food security, health, housing and digital transformation.
Innovation and digital transformation contributed 15 percent, rewarding public sector modernisation efforts, including digitisation of services, elimination of bureaucratic bottlenecks and use of data-driven planning. A further 15 percent assessed integrity, governance and public accountability, including audit results, transparency, anti-corruption measures, staff welfare and institutional capacity-building.
The assessment used quantitative data from government reports, qualitative presentations submitted by the PSs and stakeholder feedback from staff, inter-agency counterparts and the public. Quantitative evidence accounted for 60 percent of the score, qualitative submissions 30 percent and stakeholder surveys 10 percent.
Energy PS Alex Wachira, Roads PS Eng. Joseph Mbugua, Children Welfare Services PS CPA Carren Ageng’o and Investment Promotion PS Abubakar Hassan were among those ranked in positions six to nine, scoring between 61.5 percent and 58.1 percent. Public Health PS Mary Muthoni closed the top ten with 57.1 percent.
The remaining half of the top 20 featured PSs in key social and economic sectors including irrigation, treasury, culture, tourism, gender, youth affairs, higher education and social protection. Scores in this category ranged from 56.2 percent to 52.3 percent, showing a relatively narrow gap in mid-tier performance.
While the report highlights commendable leadership and improvements in service delivery, it also underscores gaps in performance within state departments, indicating uneven progress in policy execution and transparency.
Politrack Africa describes the evaluation as a tool to track reform momentum, transparency and results in government, arguing that effective leadership at the PS level is central to realising long-term national development goals.
The release of rankings comes at a time when the Ruto administration is under public scrutiny over service delivery, cost of living and accountability, with mounting pressure for measurable outcomes in large-scale reform programmes.
