Electronic Governance and Employees’ Performance in the Ministry of Interior and Coordination of National Government in Kenya

Electronic governance is a strategic intervention that government agencies implement streamline operations and improve service delivery. Although e-governance is linked to performance, the effect of e-governance on employees’ performance has not been exhausted empirically. Therefore, the objective of this study was to investigate the influence of e-governance on employees’ performance in the Immigration Department of the Ministry of Interior and Coordination of National Government in Kenya. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design which was cross sectional in nature. The target population for the study was 516 comprising employees of the immigration department from three selected locations in Nairobi City County, Kenya. A sample size of 103 respondents was selected using stratified proportionate random sampling. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and regressional analysis. The results revealed that e-governance practices have been adopted at a moderate level despite considerable influence on employees’ performance. Further the findings showed that electronic governance as indicated by e-visa processing has a statistically significant influence on the employees’ performance. The study recommends that the immigration office should provide an effective online feedback system for e-visa processing that would provide real-time service delivery.

governance and performance at the employee level. The need to study e-governance and performance at employees' level is therefore critical. This study sought to fill the gap and investigate the influence of e-governance on employee performance in the Ministry of Interior and Coordination of National Government and the scope of the study was the department of Immigration and employee performance.
The specific objective of this study was to establish the influence of e-visa processing on employees' performance at the immigration department in Kenya. Consequently the research hypothesis of the study was: Ho 1: E-visa processing has no statistical significant influence on employees' performance at the Immigration department in Kenya.

Literature Review
The study was anchored on the theory of change and Management Information Systems theory.

Theory of Change
The theory of change was first published by Weiss (1995) and explains how and why change initiatives work. The theory of change outlines the long-term goals and works backward to launch the basic preconditions (Brest, 2010) that would form the foundation of the transformation. The theory centers not just on creating knowledge about a project's effectiveness, but also on clarifying methods of a project's effectiveness. This is achieved through a description of change process that outlines key initiatives and short-term, medium term, and long-term outcomes (Clark & Taplin, 2012). Change management in organizations is implemented through strategic interventions (Njama & Kyalo, 2015). E-governance is considered a strategic intervention that aims at improving service delivery and efficiency in operations. The adoption of ICT through the e-foreign national's services portal is inclusive of several perspectives as well as participants in realizing solutions (Mwangi, 2015). The implementation of ICT in government services has improved employee performance. Therefore, the theory of change is critical in explaining the significance of adoption of e-governance in the public sector, and in particular the use of e-visa processing, as well as employees' performance in immigration operations in Kenya.

Management Information Systems Theory
Management information systems theory was proposed by Weber (1986). Information systems consists of modes that have the capability to store data, channels that can dispense information as well as actors acting and re-acting upon that information (Affisco & Soliman, 2011). According to (Muir & Oppenheim, 2012), a system is the aggregate role of an organization, people, as well as technological artifacts it possesses. The MIS theory suggests that the short-term drive of an information system is dissemination of correct facts to the right actors in the right time. Information systems and information technology are vital components of a successful organization. Information technology is critical in planning, collecting, transporting, recovery, storage, access, presentation and conversion of information.
The control of information guarantees proper selection, management, operation, deployment, conservation consistent with the aims and purposes of the organization (North & Thomas, 2011). Information systems or data frameworks have numerous roles in an organization, for example, building an operation's proficiency, processing business exchanges, monitoring and assessing employees job outcomes, and enhancing documentation and correspondence channels (Miranda & Kim, 2015). In the immigration department, information technology is vital in building the department's information system because according to Kostiwa (2013) ICT is an initiator, facilitator, and an enabler in the e-visa processing.

E-visa Processing and Employees' Performance
Dinoroy (2017) conducted a study on the impact of e-governance system on public service quality in Indonesia. The research used a descriptive and qualitative approach to explain and analyze the data. In the study, several policies which are closely related to the implementation of the e-governance and e-public service in Indonesia were used. It was also supported by the empirical evidence that practically happened in the central and local government. The obstacles and failure of the implementation of e-governance policy to bring significant effects on the improvement of the public service became the main focus. Several research results and analysis from other papers were also used as the supporting data to strengthen the analysis. The study findings cannot however be generalized to the immigration department in Nairobi in Kenya because the study was conducted in Indonesia. Okunola (2015) explored the experience of the users of e-government services in the immigration department in Nigeria and the findings indicated a low level of satisfaction with the Nigeria immigration service website, and concerns from majority of the respondents stemmed from matters relating to security, support and trustworthiness, documented about safety of personal and financial data. Nonetheless, users loved the quality of the content and information provided in the portal. The study employed snowballing sampling and collected data using questionnaire and analyzed the data through descriptive statistics. The study however focused on digital divide in e-governance, factors contributing to various users' experience, the relationship between demographic factors and digital divide, developing a conceptual model of users' experience of e-governance service, and to offer recommendations for further research and failed to establish the influence of e-visa processing, and PISCES on employee performance of the immigration department and this were the focus of this study and it was conducted in Nairobi City County in Kenya. Wanyama (2016) conducted an assessment of the implementation of e-governance on organizational effectiveness in the immigration in Nairobi in Kenya and revealed a significant positive relationship between ICT training, availability of ICT infrastructure, legal framework, and effectiveness of the immigration department. The study also reported a weak positive correlation between digital divide and effectiveness of an organization. This study used a descriptive research design and data was collected from 200 immigration officers and clients at Nyayo house, and employed descriptive and inferential analysis and regression analysis was used to show the relationship between the variable. The study however did not focus on the contribution of e-visa processing, e-passport system, e-FNS portal, and PISCES on employee performance of the immigration department in Kenya. The study did not also focus on employee performance that was investigated in the current study.
A study by Mwangi (2015) on the adoption of e-governance in Kenyan ministries found out that combining ICT with other drivers of e-governance can make Kenyan ministries to be extra responsive and more effective in public needs, and eventually, create a highly sustainable future for the advantage of the whole nation. The Study focused on adoption of e-governance and not employee performance. The current study, therefore, sought to address the empirical gaps by focusing on the critical section of government, that is, the immigration department and focus on the e-visa processing as the main construct of e-governance, as the independent variable, and employees' performance as the dependent variable.

Methodology
This study used a descriptive research design. The target population of the study consisted 516 immigration officers working in the three selected locations in immigration department in Nairobi City County. The population size comprised of 202 immigration officers in Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, 13 at Wilson Airport and 301. This study used stratified random sampling where 20% of the target population was selected. The sample size for this study was therefore 103 respondents. Data was collected using a questionnaire. A pilot study was conducted using 10 % of the target population whose participants were excluded from the main study. To measure internal consistency, Cronbach's Alpha was used to determine the reliability of the questionnaire in which an Alpha coefficients of 0.7 was considered satisfactory (Cooper & Schindler, 2014). Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and a linear regression analysis as stated below: Y =β 0 +β 1 X 1 + ℮ Where; Y = Employees' Performance Β 0 = Coefficient of intercept X 1 = E-visa processing ℮ = Error term The variables of this study were measured using empirically validated measures. Employees' performance was a measured in terms of quantity delivered in the time unit, speed in which the service is delivered, customer experience and attainment of the set targets (Stevenson, 2011). On the other hand, e-governance is indicated by evisa processing which is measured in terms of visa processing information, online payment, online application, status communication and feedback

Findings 4.1 Response Rate and Reliability Tests
The researcher administered 103 questionnaires to immigration officers based at Nyayo house, Wilson Airport, and Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. Those who adequately filled and returned questionnaires were 81 which represents a response rate of 78.6 per cent which was considered adequate to generalise findings of this study (Saunders, et al, 2012). All the items that were tested for reliability yielded results of above 0.7 Cronbach's Alpha coefficient and were therefore reliable to be used for the study's investigation. Hypotheses were tested at 95% confidence level.

E-Visa Processing and Employees' Performance
The study sought to establish the level of adoption of E-visa processing and influence on employees' performance. The results are presented in table 1. The immigration department online payment for VISAs has enhanced positive customer experience 81 3.5 1.1 Migrant are allowed to submit online applications for VISAs. 81 3.5 1.4 The status of VISA processing is communicated online hence enhances speed of services 81 3.5 1.4 The immigration office provides feedback on VISAs online 81 3.1 1.4 Source: Onyango, Bula and Ndegwa (2021) The results in table.1 indicate that, migrants are moderately allowed to submit online applications for VISAs (mean = 3.5, standard deviation = 1.4). At the same time, the immigration department online payment for VISAs has enhanced positive customer experience (mean = 3.5, standard deviation = 1.1) and the status of VISA processing is communicated online hence enhances speed of services (mean = 3.5, standard deviation = 1.4).
Findings also indicate that immigration department fairly provides all the required information on visa processing online which makes employees' work easier (mean = 3.4, standard deviation = 1.3) and provides feedback on VISAs online (mean = 3.1, standard deviation = 1.4).
The results are consistent with the findings in Wanyama (2016) who assessed the implementation of egovernance on organizational effectiveness in the immigration in Kenya and revealed a significant positive relationship between ICT training, availability of ICT infrastructure, legal framework, and effectiveness of the immigration department Using linear regression analysis the study sought to determine the influence of e-visa processing on employees' performance. The results are presented in table 2.  (2021) The results presented in Table 2 show that when all e-governance variable (that is E-Visa Processing) is held constant, employees' performance will remain at 0.190. At the same time, an increase in E-Visa Processing, would lead to an increase in employees' performance by 0.381 units respectively. From the table it can be concluded that the coefficient of the independent variable was significant in explaining the changes in the dependent variable. This can be summarized by the following model: Y = 0.190 + 0.381X 1 Where X 1 , represents E-Visa Processing

Test of Hypotheses
H0 1: E-visa processing has no significant influence on employees' performance of immigration department, Nairobi City County, Kenya. Given that t-calculated (0.05, 2-tail test = 3.359) > t-critical (0.05, 2-tail test = 1.990) and Value=0.001< 0.05, the null hypothesis was rejected. The study concluded that E-visa processing has significant influence on employees' performance of immigration department, Nairobi City County, Kenya.

Conclusions
From the study we can conclude that electronic governance as indicated by e-visa processing has a significant influence on the employees' performance. It is imperative that the immigration office should provide feedback system on VISAs online. This system should be effective and providing real-time service delivery. The government should also develop policies that are in tandem with requirements for efficient electronic governance. The policies should also target border management where there should be existence of non-sophisticated border management tools and powerful high-tech weapons designed to help fight against illegal immigrants. The government should enhance factors like authorization, production timeliness, and ease of use, quality, compatibility, location issues, systems reliability and relationship with users.

References
Abu-Shanab, E. (2012). Digital Government Adoption in Jordan: An Environmental Model. The International