More than half of City Hall staff without secondary school papers

Thursday, February 16, 2017 — updated on December 22, 2020 - 2 min read

Nairobi County Public Service Board chairman Phillip Kungu (left) at a past event. He says Nairobi County public service is bloated with an unskilled and ageing workforce, which has led to a ballooning of the wage bill of Sh1.5 billion a month with little output in service delivery. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

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County public service head says professionals needed for specific functions such as engineers, architects and lawyers constitute only two per cent, terming the structure unrealistic.
The unskilled workforce constitute the the largest chunk of employees, taking big resources in terms of salaries.
He said the the county government is struggling to pay salaries as what it gets from the national government is not enough.

The Nairobi county government is bloated with an unskilled and aging workforce that has seen the wage bill balloon to Sh1.1 billion a month.

In a county with more than 14,000 workers, 8,400 have attained primary education with only 240 or less than two per cent comprising engineers and architects, said to be professionals, said Nairobi Public Service Board chairman Philip Kungu.

“The composition of the staff has serious issues. We have a situation where 70 per cent have primary education and are over 55 years,” said Mr Kungu.

“We require necessary competency and skills for efficient service delivery.”

Mr Kungu said the county is struggling to pay salaries because City Hall received Sh900 milion from the national government and the county is expected to generate additional cash from local revenue collections.

He added that the money from the Treasury is disbursed late while the revenue collections fluctuate depending on the time of the year, piling pressure on payment of salaries and suppliers as well as service delivery.

Mr Kungu said the bloated workforce at City Hall is unsustainable despite having cleaned its payroll of ghost workers.
He said a lack of supervisors had contributed to laxity among workers with some absconding duty despite receiving salaries.

On doctors strike, Mr Kungu said City Hall had issued the health workers show cause letters as stipulated by the law since they had boycotted work.

However, the county official added, the county would comply with a return-to-work formula and new pay terms once an agreement is reached.

The City Hall suspended payment of salaries to more than 100 doctors who have been participating in the nationwide strike since last December.