Health workers and the media did an excellent job in 2020 while county governments, the Senate, National Assembly and the police were among those who performed poorly, a new survey shows.
The Infotrak survey conducted from December 27-29 last year shows health workers were the heroes of the year, followed by the media.
The survey covered all the eight regions (former provinces) in Kenya and 24 of the 47 counties.
Seventy percent of the respondents said health workers did an excellent job last year while 60 percent said the media performed well.
Nairobi residents rated health workers highly while those in Nyanza rated the media the best in terms of their performance last year.
The survey also shows that the police performed poorly, with a 47 percent rating, followed by the National Assembly (39 percent), the Senate (35 percent) and county governments (31 percent).
Government’s performance
Forty six percent of the participants said President Uhuru Kenyatta did a good job while 45 percent believe it was the church that performed well.
The President is perceived to have performed excellently by Western residents followed by Coast residents.
The research found that Kenyans in the Rift Valley, Nairobi and Western are the least satisfied with the government’s running of the economy in 2020.
The study that involved 800 respondents reveals that 47 percent of Kenyans believe the government’s performance in handling the Covid-19 pandemic has been average with only 22 percent it has been excellent.
Majority of Kenyans (65 percent) feel the government did not do a good job of running the economy in 2020. However 42 percent are confident that government will do better in 2021.
Economic recovery
Economically, 61 percent of those surveyed are optimistic that 2021 will be a better year than 2020 , with 27 percent believing the economy will improve.
Asked why they thought the year will be better, 16 percent said they were confident citizens will get the Covid-19 vaccine while 14 percent said they were hopeful about finding jobs.
Those most optimistic about a better year for the country were from North Eastern (65 percent) and Coast (54 percent).
In terms of taxes, the majority of the public were disappointed that the government lifted relief measures.
With the exception of North Eastern and Coast regions, only three in 10 Kenyans in the other regions were supportive of the government’s decision to end the relief.