Civil service job cuts to start in March, says PSC
Margaret Kobia, head of public service. Photo/FILE
What you need to know:
The exercise, which involves evaluation of jobs, competencies and structures, is meant to improve service delivery while keeping the wage bill in check.
The exercise is intended to match jobs to staff and skills and to put the staff on regular grading at both the county and national governments.
A clean-up of the government payroll is expected to save the money for other urgent budget items.
Thousands of public servants could be out of jobs by end of March next year when the ongoing staff rationalisation is expected to end.
Head of public service Margaret Kobia said the rightsizing plan for both county and national governments was underway with the help of consultants, with March 2015 as the completion date.
The exercise, which involves evaluation of jobs, competencies and structures, is meant to improve service delivery while keeping the wage bill in check, she said.
Prof Kobia said there has been a realisation that the public service is not delivering the expected value even as it consumed billions of shillings in wages.
“A review is necessary so that we can match jobs to competencies and adopt a lean structure,” said Prof Kobia.
She made the revelation after opening a workshop in Nairobi on the adoption of national values and principles of governance.
Transition Authority (TA) chairman Kinuthia Wamwangi said two committees had been formed to execute the reorganisation.
“The rationalisation exercise must be done in the next one year. We agreed on it at State House and a steering committee headed by the Devolution ministry and co-chaired by the PSC got down to work,” said Mr Wamwangi.
“A technical interagency committee involving the TA is also in place and a secretariat set up.”
The exercise is intended to match jobs to staff and skills and to put the staff on regular grading at both the county and national governments.
“Once the rationalisation is done, it should be possible for a worker to move from county to national government with a defined grade and without losing any benefits,” said Mr Wamwangi.
A joint report of the PSC, the Transition Authority, Ministry of Devolution and Planning as well as the public service boards of county governments will determine the actual shape of government.
In January, President Uhuru Kenyatta said ghost workers were skimming off Sh1.8 billion from taxpayers annually.
A clean-up of the government payroll is expected to save the money for other urgent budget items.
Official data shows that three units of government, including the Teachers Service Commission (TSC), State corporations and county governments, account for more than half of the national wage bill.
The wage bill stood at Sh521.6 billion or 13 per cent of GDP, at the end of the last financial year, having risen from Sh458 billion the previous year.
“We will be paying more attention to these three institutions since they account for a large part of the wage burden that the government is bearing,” Devolution and Planning secretary Anne Waiguru said in March this year.
Teachers are being paid a total of Sh138 billion this financial year, while State corporations are in second place with Sh83 billion. County governments’ wage bill grew more than 15 times to Sh71.2 billion.
