Kenya begins potentially painful civil service shake-up

From left seated: SRC Chairperson Sarah Serem, Kisii Governor James Ongwae, Devolution CS Anne Waiguru and Public Service Commission Chairperson Margaret Kobia address the Press at Harambee House, Monday. [PHOTO: GOVEDI ASUTSA/STANDARD]

NAIROBI, KENYA: President Uhuru Kenyatta’s administration has signalled a shake-up of the civil service cutting across the national and county governments with possible job cuts once completed by November.

After assuming office last year, the President unveiled a new governance structure that collapsed the ministries from 44 to18 and Monday authorities announced the changes are moving down to the lower cadres of the bloated public service. In a move aimed at reducing the spiralling wage bill and improving efficiency, officials announced “capacity assessment and rationalisation programme” aims to assess civil servants’ competences and match them with suitable roles through restructuring, redeployment and transfers.

Devolution Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru Monday explained the process is aimed at restructuring and reforming the public service to make it more efficient and effective. “The current dispensation has made it imperative to realign structures, processes, programmes, institutions and staffing to core mandates to ensure a responsive public service that meets the expectations of Kenyans,” Ms Waiguru said at her offices in Nairobi.

She added: “The rationalisation exercise will involve carrying out capacity assessment, restructuring, undertaking human resource and skills audit, staff redeployment and transfers, where necessary after capturing and analysing biometric data.”

Although the Government has not made a direct reference to job losses, perhaps because of the attendant political backlash, the justification given for reforming the bureaucracy, though mainly to improve service delivery, also points to that eventuality. 

President Uhuru Kenyatta has emphatically stated the size of the public sector wage bill is currently unsustainable and unacceptable and even the government convened a national wage bill conference to discuss the crisis.

The President explained in the last Financial Year that the total remuneration to the public service accounted for 55 per cent of the tax revenue and 13 per cent of the Gross Domestic Income and hence the rise in the public sector wage bill was unsustainable.

Officials say the rise in employment in the public sector over the past few years, as a result of new constitutional dispensation that ushered in a Devolved system of government and established various new institutions, has majorly contributed to the rising public expenditure, especially recurrent. Authorities argue new public sector jobs increased by 58,700 between 2008 and 2013. The restructuring could also be informed by the need to align the bureaucracy to ensure the manifesto of the Jubilee coalition is achieved. A similar process is on-going in the State Corporations.   

The programme to reform the public service announced is spearheaded by the Devolution Ministry, Transition Authority and County governments. Waiguru explained the programme of rationalisation would be conducted through an inter-governmental framework on the basis of consultation, collaboration and co-operation amongst stakeholders including Union of Kenya Civil Servants (UKCS).

Already preliminary activities on the programme have commenced including the gazettement of the institutional framework for the implementation of the joint programme and operationalisation of a secretariat. Waiguru explained that the objective of rationalisation programme is to undertake strategic reviews of the organisational structure, functions and staffing of the national and county public service against their respective mandates.

But Public Service Commission (PSC) Chairperson Margaret Kobia said the purpose is not retrenchment but to restructure public service and “populate staff and competencies”. “We will ensure that there is optimum staffing for all ministries and County governments. This will be based on competences and efficiency of every civil servant,” said Prof Kobia.

Kobia charged that senior officials would have to follow public service code of regulations in the deployment and transfer of public servants. The steering committee of the process include Waiguru, Kobia, Council of Governors (CoG) Chair in charge of Human Resource and Social Welfare Committee Mr James Ongwae, Salaries and Remuneration Commission head Mrs Sarah Serem, Transition Authority leader Kinuthia Wa Mwangi,as well as representatives from Commission on Revenue Allocation and Commission for the Implementation of the Constitution (CIC).

Ongwae also downplayed fears by the Civil Servants that the national and county governments are planning to undertake a retrenchment.

The Kisii governor sought to clear doubts on the planned rationalisation exercise, explaining that the two levels of governments want to take stock of all staff in the Public Service. “We want to have a database of all the staff and establish where there are gaps to be filled instead of recruiting afresh, “he told The Standard.

Ongwae said the redeployment would enable counties get the required skilled staff and avoid duplication of roles at the two levels of government. He explained that the rationalisation exercise will entail identification of staff by use of biometric features such as eyes or finger prints. “We are going to use the biometric data, which will capture details of all the public servants. This is a positive exercise and there is no ill-motive. There should not be a cause for alarm.” He stated that the stakeholders involved should not demand for dialogue before the exercise is undertaken.