State agencies given 6 months to comply with HR guidelines

Head of Public Service Felix Koskei. [File, Standard] The Public Service Commission (PSC) has asserted its dominance over state corporation management, giving parastatals a 180-day ultimatum to secure approval for their Human Resource (HR) manuals. The move ends a long-standing jurisdictional tug-of-war with the State Corporations Advisory Committee (SCAC). In a new circular, any parastatal operating without PSC-approved guidelines after the six-month grace period will see its personnel decisions lose all legal standing. Citing a December 2025 landmark court ruling, PSC warned that failure to align and submit their HR manuals for approval by September could render staff actions, including hiring, promotions and disciplinary measures, null and void. The December 2025 court ruling noted that PSC has the power to receive, consider and approve or reject HR instruments for state corporations and public universities. These are organisational structure, staff establishment, human resource manual and career progression guidelines. SCAC has, in the past, been given the powers through executive orders. "Accordingly, all state corporations that are operating on human resource instruments that have not been approved by PSC are required to immediately review the same and submit to the Commission for approval within six months of this circular," said PSC in the March 6 circular. "In the interim period, the Commission grants approval for the continued use of the existing human resources instruments for six months from the date of this circular." PSC added that after six months, all HR instruments not approved by the Commission would lose their validity and "any actions taken using the said HR instruments thereafter will automatically be null and void". The jurisdictional fight between PSC and SCAC is currently unfolding in a case where the Anti-Counterfeit Authority (ACA) is engaged in a fight with its director of legal services and corporation secretary, Johnson Otieno Adera. ACA in February this year interdicted Adera, but he protested the process through a suit at the high court, in which he argued that the ACA HR manual was not approved by PSC. "The impugned manual (Human Resource Policy and Procedures Manual) is unconstitutional and illegal and does not form part of the contract of service with the respondent (ACA) on account of being contrary to the Constitution and Statute," he said in court papers. Adera last week got a reprieve from the court, which stayed disciplinary action awaiting a ruling on his application to quash the interdiction letter. The ruling is expected to be delivered on 8th April 2026 by Justice Hellen Wasilwa. "I never consented to the said manual prior to the manual being developed and eventually sent out to staff by email as mandatory required under ... the Employment Act ... that of the gravest concern is that the said manual was revised and approved by the State Corporations Advisory Committee allegedly on April 14, 2021 ... and not the Public Service Commission." Adera further noted that since August 27, 2010, the power to approve human resource instruments within the public service is vested in PSC, which "has the sole mandate to approve any manual for use in the public service". The courts, he said, have in "times without number" ruled that SCAC has no mandate to approve human resource instruments for use in the public service. The PSC and SCAC war for oversight of HR guidelines within parastatals intensified in 2023 when the PSC issued a circular, in which it stated that it had an exclusive mandate. The National Treasury, in January 2024, however, said it would require state corporations to show SCAC approval for the HR instrument before disbursing funds for the recruitment of new officials. The push and pull saw activists, including John Githongo and the Law Society of Kenya (LSK), go to court challenging the government's insistence that SCAC had the mandate. They argued that this was an attempt by the executive to bypass the PSC in the hiring and firing of public officials. The High Court in December ruled that PSC has the mandate.

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