Civil servants to be retired as pay rise put on hold

The pay rise of about 200,000 civil servants may be frozen and others retired early in a move to restructure the government.

Government departments were preparing for a major audit to establish how many workers each had ahead of massive transfers to counties, redeployments or early retirements.

At the weekend, Planning and Devolution Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru said that the introduction of devolution had led to bloated ministries.

There were about 217,000 civil servants before some functions were devolved. Many employees are in the lower and middle cadres.
County governments have been recruiting new staff leaving those in the national government idle or under-employed.

At the weekend, the Cabinet directed the Ministry of Devolution and Planning to freeze new recruitment and suspend pay and allowance increases. (READ: Cabinet freezes new employment to check wage bill)

On Saturday, Ms Waiguru told NTV that the country voted for a new Constitution “because Kenyans wanted a leaner government, to spend less money on salaries and a lot on development, which is not happening now”. She said shedding of excess workers was inevitable.

“Those who will leave will be given incentives. I would not call it retrenchment,” she said in the clearest indication yet that some civil servant will be retired. “People may volunteer to go home and get incentives; we will begin with those measures before thinking of retrenchment.”

BLOATED WORKFORCE

After the audit, the salaries of all civil servants would be reviewed regardless of rank. But she denied claims that the government was bankrupt, saying: “We have an excess of Sh50 billion in the Central Bank”.

On Tuesday, the Transition Authority chairman, Mr Kinuthia Wamwangi, asked all government departments to deal with their bloated workforce.

“We need to move fast and start a massive rationalisation and redeployment if we are to save jobs and avoid fear among civil servants,” he said.

One option is to transfer idle staff from the national to county governments where their services would be needed.

“In that case we would move the extra staff to counties before they can recruit,” he said.

In the past, however, attempts to transfer national government workers to the counties were resisted.

Counties have been recruiting staff even as some civil servants who can do the jobs remain under-employed.

“We need not talk of retrenchment if we have gaps in the counties,” Mr Wamwangi said.

Salaries and Remuneration Commission boss Sarah Serem warned the country was unlikely to sustain the pay for the large number of officials working for county governments.

She warned of possible collapse of devolution if county government leaders fail to generate revenues.

“We hear recruitments taking place on a daily basis in counties; where will money come from to pay this large number of people?” she asked, warning that the hirings could prove disastrous if not checked.

DUPLICATION

Mrs Serem, who spoke on Tuesday, said there was the danger of multiplication and duplication of jobs at the national and county levels.

In a swipe at members of County Assemblies, who have been on a go-slow for more than two months, Mrs Serem also criticised those demanding salary increments when they had not worked.

“We shall review salaries as a result of the output of these people; we cannot give a lot of money yet we have not seen any service,” she said.

She said, however, that devolution could work with proper structures.

“The formation of the county governments is like starting a new business; we have to initially incur a lot of costs putting them up with the hope that soon we shall reap the benefits,” she said.

Mrs Serem described those clamouring for higher salaries as selfish. The government can only afford the salaries of all senators, governors, county representative and MPs if county governance helps to improve the economy.

“We put good governance, we generate good money,” she said.

Last week, Gem MP Jakoyo Midiwo started a campaign, backed by some MPs, calling for the Senate to be scrapped to save the government from financial collapse. He said the country was spending Sh458.7 billion in salaries, which is slightly less than half of the annual Budget.

As part of the plan to have a sustainable devolved system of governance, some MPs have also proposed a review of boundaries to merge wards to reduce the number of representatives from 1,450 to about 900.

Also targeted are some 13 constitutional commissions, which draw huge allowances.

The MPs want them scrapped or their membership reduced to three.