Why cutting wage bill is a hot political decision

Lyn Mengich, SRC chairperson addressing delegates at a hotel in Mombasa County yesterday during institute of human resource management conference. [Mkamburi Mwawasi, Standard].

Debate on ballooning public wage and corruption dominated a conference attended by more than 10,000 human resource practitioners in Mombasa, yesterday.

Participants were divided on whether the national and county governments should take a drastic action to trim the workforce. Others termed it a populist political debate.

Speaking at the meeting, Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) chair Lyn Mengich (pictured) said there was need to interrogate reports of high GDP and its cause.

“The big question is what is really driving this factor. Our discussion should be, what is the ratio of the wage bill to our revenue and indeed the GDP,” said Ms Mengich.

She said the problem lay more on how the country could grow its Gross Domestic Product so the ratio of public wage bill and Government revenue could be balanced.

But other participants said the wage bill problem could be solved through fiscal discipline and not sacking of workers.

The national and county governments are grappling with huge public wage bill blamed on bloated workforce.

In some counties, the problem is also blamed on alleged ghost workers or some employees drawing double salaries, said some participants in an interview.

Yesterday, the HR practitioners were also put to task over their role to combat corruption in public and private institutions in the country.

Mengich and Institute of Human Resource Management (IHRM) chair, Elijah Sitimah, said managers have a critical role to play in curbing corruption in the public and private sector.

The SRC chair said human resource managers should be held responsible for corruption at work place, adding that they were the custodians of integrity in institutions.

She said managers are in charge of recruitment of staff, therefore, should take responsibility whenever employees were involved in corruption or other unethical practices.

“Indeed, HR professionals are key in eliminating the vices such as corruption that has been contributing to wastage in our nation,” she said.

Mengich spoke to the Press on the sidelines of the 22nd Annual National Human Resource Managers Conference organised by the Institute of Human Resource Management (IHRM).

More than 1,000 human resource managers from across the country are attending the four-day conference.

“Integrity at the work place stops with the HR managers. Managers are the keepers of the standards and policies of an organisation. I personally want to hold HR professionals responsible for failure of ensuring integrity is upheld at our places of work,” said Mr Sitimah.

He said the institute had developed a code of conduct for all members and put in place a disciplinary committee to deal with cases of indiscipline.

Dorcas Wainaina, the executive director of IHRM, said they had launched an assessment centre, in which candidates would have to be vetted before they are employed.