KEMRI Board Signs Performance Contract with Director General

By Edwin Bett

The KEMRI Board of Directors signed the Performance Contract for the 2025/26 Financial Year with the Ag. Director General, Prof. Elijah Songok last Tuesday, 30th, September 2025 marking a decisive step in strengthening accountability, efficiency, and service delivery within the Institute.

Following the ceremony, the Ag. Director General in turn signed corresponding Performance Contracts with six key directors, namely: Corporate Services; Research and Development; Strategy and Compliance; Legal Services; Research Capacity Building; and Scientific Partnerships & Grants Management.

This move cascades institutional commitments down to directorate levels, ensuring that responsibilities are clearly defined and deliverables firmly tied to results.

The cascading process aligns with the Government’s 22nd Cycle Performance Contracting Guidelines, which require contracts to be translated into specific, measurable outputs at departmental, centre, and individual levels.

These commitments are also closely tied to national priorities, including Vision 2030, KEMRI’s Strategic Plan 2023–2027, and the Institute’s Annual Work Plan, with outcomes directly linked to staff performance appraisals.

Speaking at the signing, the Chairman of the KEMRI Board of Directors, Dr Abdullahi Ali, described the exercise as “a critical milestone in entrenching a results-driven culture at KEMRI,” noting that the framework enhances transparency, accountability, and efficiency across the institute’s operations.

In the coming weeks, the signed contracts will be cascaded further to Deputy Directors and all staff through KEMRI’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, enabling real-time monitoring, seamless reporting, and integration with individual performance evaluations.

The writer is the Director in charge of Strategy & Compliance at KEMRI