Economy

Civil servants perks targeted in new cost-cutting plan

money

A money counter. The race for travel allowances has seen Kenya send some of the largest delegations to international meetings or assignments. Photo/FILE

Public officials will have their earnings drop by up to one third as the government moves to curb pilferage and waste through tight management of routine expenditure that affords them thousands of shillings on top of official pay every month.

The rollout of the austerity measures has begun in earnest in Deputy President (DP) William Ruto’s office where a directive limiting expenses on things like air travel, newspapers, cash imprests, office flowers and retreats has been issued.

An internal memo sent to the workers by Daniel Wambura, the principal administrative secretary in the DP’s office, identifies 12 key areas where significant cost cutting is expected.

“As you are all aware, the government is going through economic pressures especially with the management of high expenditure against limited revenue inflows,” Mr Wambura says in the memo seen by the Business Daily.

“This (memo) is therefore to bring to your attention the outlined internal policies that will govern operations and maintenance in this office.”

The memo to the more than 350 employees in the DP’s office says domestic and international travel is restricted to those with “specific assignments” in the entourage – blocking one of the biggest windows that civil servants use to increase their pay.

Public officers earn thousands of shillings in allowances during official trips – an income stream that will yield little in the coming months going by the restrictions.

Similar directives are expected in other government offices, including that of the President and parastatals.

The measures come at a time when President Uhuru Kenyatta’s government is struggling to rein in a huge and rising wage bill that currently stands at about Sh521 billion or more than a quarter of the national budget.

READ: Uhuru, Ruto to take 20pc pay cut in bid to tame huge wage bill

It is common practice for government employees to travel on official duty with members of their families leaving the State to pick up the tab.

The race for travel allowances has seen Kenya send some of the largest delegations to international meetings or assignments.

That was the case during the 2012 London Olympics when the then Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka led a delegation of more than 100 people to the opening ceremony, costing the taxpayer millions of shillings.

Last year, State officers were restricted to flying business class while on foreign trips in an attempt to cut back on expensive luxury travel.

Another item that is up for the chop is imprest – normally spent on tea and accompanying snacks.

Senior government officials, who are entitled to imprests of between Sh20,000 and Sh40,000 have now been instructed to surrender them in exchange for much lower ones valued at Sh5,000.

Paul Mwangi, a former legal adviser to former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, recently highlighted rampant wastage in government through an article published in the Sunday Nation.

“I was entitled to tea, coffee or hot chocolate as I desired and to a choice of sugar or honey for my sweetener,” wrote Mr Mwangi. “There were no less than 10 senior officials to whom this allocation was made and many of us never got to know how much was picked or spent on our accounts.”

The government hopes that the lower value imprests will force officials to cut back on the amount of snacks and cups of tea they serve guests, if at all they do.

The expenditure cuts at the DP’s office have not spared newspapers either.  Heads of departments, who would normally get four different copies every morning, now have to make do with one.

More cuts are being made on mobile phone airtime allocation to senior public officials with specific instructions that all official calls must be made through the switch board.

Mr Mwangi shocked taxpayers with the revelation that he would get a total of Sh27,000 airtime every month from different service providers. On average, he added, he would use only Sh7,000 and dish out the rest.

“If there is one thing my relatives, friends and subordinates miss from my service in government it is free airtime,” he noted.

Training of employees in the DP’s office is to be done within the building while those taking place out of the country “must be donor-funded”.

READ: Uhuru sets the tone for public wage bill cut

Some crafty government employees are said to sign up for retreats (unjustifiably) while others find a way of including their names on the attendance lists but never leave the office.

Public officials who are chauffeur-driven to and from work despite not being entitled (due to their job ranks) have also been put on notice.

During the Kibaki administration, public servants were cautioned, to little effect, against using government vehicles past official working hours or for personal errands.

The problem has persisted in the Jubilee government where officials take advantage of the ‘free’ fuel that comes with government vehicles to run personal errands even on weekends.

“All vehicles are to have fuel cards in order to facilitate fuel management while misuse of government vehicles and falsified claims on fuel expenditure will attract disciplinary action,” Mr Wambura said in the memo.

The austerity measures are part of a concerted effort to plug the gap between government expenditure and revenue.

The main culprit, the government says, is the huge wage bill of Sh521 billion and which accounts for approximately 29 per cent of the country’s recurrent expenditure.

In his State of the Nation address last month, Mr Kenyatta admitted to the rot in government, saying that he had appointed a Cabinet committee to remedy the situation.

“It remains a hard truth that some of our public services are rife with wastage and corruption. That waste threatens the productivity we have so painfully begun to build. I have appointed a Cabinet committee to return us to prudence and probity in public service,” he said.

Kwame Owino, the Institute of Economic Affairs chief executive, said efforts to clean up spending within government offices should be encouraged.

However, he noted that the bigger problem lies in the wage bill whose solution should be much more calculated.

“Even though we do not have a clear picture of how much money we will save by restricting spending in government offices, the move should be encouraged,” said Mr Owino.

But given the fact that many government employees are so used to the status quo, Mr Wambura has his work cut out.

Past memos he has penned to workers in the DP’s office seem to have been ignored forcing him to write the latest one.

“My earlier communication to all heads of departments seems not to have elicited the right reaction as officers have continued to make outrageous requests even in light of the circular in austerity measures,” he said.

“Strict adherence to the listed measures should be observed.”