The implementation of the voluntary early retirement programme from July will see the Ann Kananu-led administration save on money that goes to the salaries of the targeted staff.
Salaries and wages have been surpassing the stipulated 35 percent of the total budget leading to cuts on allocation for development programmes.
City Hall has been grappling with a ballooning wage bill currently at Sh13 billion, about 44 percent of its annual budget.
The Nairobi county government has set aside Sh50 million to fund a voluntary early retirement package for its staff aged 50 and above in a bid to reduce its wage bill.
Finance and Economic Planning CEC Allan Igambi said the allocation is part of Sh1.68 billion budget the public service management sub-sector will receive towards recurrent expenditure in the financial year ending June 30, 2023.
The implementation of the voluntary early retirement programme from July will see the Ann Kananu-led administration save on money that goes to the salaries of the targeted staff.
Only 792 or 6.8 percent of the county government workforce are below the age of 35.
Salaries and wages have been surpassing the stipulated 35 percent of the total budget leading to cuts on allocation for development programmes.
City Hall has been grappling with a ballooning wage bill currently at Sh13 billion, about 44 percent of its annual budget.
“The County Public Service Board will seek to establish skilled and adequate workforce in the county public service. It will also work to see that county is saved money that goes to salaries through the implementation of VERs,” said Mr Igambi.
The county government has not had success in its attempts to retire its ageing workforce with such efforts not meeting set targets.
In May 2018, former Governor Mike Sonko tried rolling out a similar plan for its workers, planning to retire 70 percent of the ageing workforce, who were either unskilled or semi-skilled.
The plan netted only 462 employees reducing the staff number from 12, 496 staff to 12,034 as of January 2019.
A 2019 biometric report released in November placed the number of employees at 11,603 City Hall workers, a whopping 5,709 are aged 50 years and above. Interestingly, it indicated that 19 employees were still in the county government’s payroll although they were above the retirement age of 60 years.
The county government shelved a similar plan in 2020. However, in March 2021, City Hall announced it had set aside Sh100 million to commence the rollout but nothing came out of the plan.
In May 2021, the county government allocated another Sh175 million towards the early voluntary retirement scheme but the staff union opposed such plans.
