Kenya Power workers took the highest number of emergency leave days among public servants last year, a new report by the Public Service Commission (PSC) shows, amid concerns of likely abuse of the scheme which allows employees some time off work to deal with unforeseen predicaments.
The latest report shows that Kenya Power staff accounted for 99.3 percent of 27,026 emergency leaves granted to public servants in the year to June 2024.
Kenya Power, however, says the high number of times its staff took emergency leaves is “nothing out of the ordinary” owing to its large workforce of about 10,500.
The PSC report evaluated public institutions that granted emergency leave to their employees, even as it noted that the leave is not provided for in the law.
“It was established that 27,026 officers were granted emergency leave. 27,012 officers from State corporations and SAGAs (Semi-Autonomous Government Agencies) and 14 from MDAs (Ministries, Departments, and Agencies) took the leave,” the PSC report notes.
The report ranks Kenya Power top in granting of emergency leaves noting that the utility firm accounted for 26,837 emergency break. The power utility firm is followed by the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) and the State Department for Foreign Affairs with 175, and 14 emergency leave days, respectively. KPA labelled its leave days to staff as “St. Johns leave”.
The PSC notes that there is a lack of legislation on the provision of emergency leave to public servants and wants the institutions to provide an explanation as to what exactly was the issue.
“There seems to be no existing legislation for this leave. It might be possible that the 3 institutions were inferring to compassionate or sick leave.
“All public institutions which granted emergency leaves to explain the circumstances under which the leave was granted,” the PSC says.
Kenya Power said it grants its staff emergency leave to attend to “personal emergencies such as the death or sudden sickness of a close relative”.
The firm said that such leave is usually recovered from its employees’ regular annual leave days.
With a workforce of about 10,500, Kenya Power says having them take emergency leaves on 26,837 instances, which is about three times of emergency leave for every employee in a year “is within range”.
“Employees are entitled to 30 days of leave every year. As emergencies are unplanned, it’s difficult for employees to schedule emergency leave. However, emergency leave days are recovered from the total allowable annual leave days.
“Ideally, everybody is prone to an emergency that may require them to take leave from work. Assuming all employees experience 3 of these situations yearly, this translates into 31,500 instances of emergency leave across the workforce. Therefore, the 26,837 instances of emergency leave as quoted in the PSC report that you shared is within range,” Kenya Power said.
The PSC noted that Kenya Power failed to provide information as to whether authorised officers granted authority for 25,361 (94.5 percent of all the) emergency leaves that the company provided during the year.
