Civil Servants Face The Axe as Ruto Seeks Lower Ballooning Wage Bill
To lower the ballooning wage bill on the country, President William Ruto has said high number of civil servants will be axed.
According to president Ruto, his administration is ready to make painful decisions for substantive reduction of the wage bill.
In the move, thousands of support staff who constitute more than two-thirds of the 960,000 public service workforce, casual workers, and public servants with fake academic certificates will be the first casualties as the government moves to address the ballooning wage bill.
This was revealed on Wednesday following the conclusion of the 2024 National Wage Bill meeting, which included a number of resolutions that, if put into effect, may upend Kenya’s entire public sector.
Following the three-day meeting, a number of important resolutions were adopted, one of which said that all national and county government agencies should assess their staffing levels to make sure that skill sets match as needed by law.
Although public service firms must employ 70% technical and 30% support personnel, the service currently employs more support personnel than technical personnel.
The establishment’s staff composition poses a concern since it is significantly biased towards support personnel, hence undervaluing technical and other core-function employees. It is evident that 83 percent of state departments have not followed the advised ratio.
Dr Ruto also noted that the proliferation of public servants with fake certificates had not only contributed to the worsening of services offered due to their lack of skills but also added to the ballooning wage bill that is now unsustainable.
The President tasked the Ethics and Anti-corruption Commission (EACC) and the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) to apprehend culprits holding fake academics, viewing this as a quick win of removing unnecessary load on the wage bill.
President Ruto further said the government will implement several measures to achieve a 35 per cent wage bill ratio to revenue in the next three years.
The President said there has been significant progress in managing public wage bill, highlighting its reduction from 51 per cent to 46 per cent.
“We aspire to deal with this challenge in the next three years and bring it to 35 per cent,” he said.
President Ruto urged leaders not to pursue populist positions and instead be prepared to make tough decisions for the government to achieve the ambitious goal.
The President said the government is keen on enhancing revenue collection through digitisation and fighting corruption in the public service.
He said increasing the country’s revenue will improve the wage bill-to-revenue ratio.
The President pointed out that the government is also creating alternative pathways for employment to ease the pressure on the PSC which, he said, cannot hire all job seekers.
