Ruto Budget: Job cuts loom in Kenya's state agencies
National Treasury Cabinet Secretary Prof. Njuguna Ndung’u address a presser after Presenting the Budget at parliament buildings on June 15, 2023.
What you need to know:
- The public service employed 963,200 workers in 2021/22, which was a growth of 40,100 jobs from the 923,100 persons who were employed in 2020/21, according to the SRC.
- Over the past seven years, employees in the public sector have increased by 188,500, from 774,700 in 2015/16, which translates to an annual average growth rate of 26,929 new jobs.
- The public sector wage bill hit Sh1.055 trillion in 2021/22, having grown by 69.6 per cent from Sh622 billion by 2015/16, data from SRC shows.
Treasury Cabinet Secretary Njuguna Ndung’u has hinted at a possible massive retrenchment of lower-cadre staff in State corporations to weed out excess workers.
The CS, while presenting the 2023/24 budget in Parliament yesterday, indicated that State corporations were filled with excess staff who have not only affected service delivery but also led to most of the corporations struggling financially.
He said Treasury had instructed the State Corporations Advisory Committee (SCAC) to start a programme to “rationalise staff establishment to keep them lean” in state corporations, mainly targeting support staff.
“A large number of State corporations rely on exchequer funding to service their payroll and other expenses. Over the years, bloated payrolls have remained a large burden to the exchequer, resorting in cumulated, un-serviced statutory obligations, and pension liabilities running into billions of shillings,” he said.
Prof Ndung’u said Treasury had established that, in most of the firms, a huge proportion of workers comprised support staff. The Public Service Commission (PSC) requires that the ratio of technical to support staff should be 70:30, for effective service delivery.
The CS said the committee would work together with the PSC and the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) in allocating staff to state corporations going forward.
Redundancies
The exercise is likely to see state corporations with support staff beyond their required capacities declare redundancies.
The CS said Treasury was also going to bar state corporations not cleared by the three bodies from hiring new workers.
“Treasury shall only approve budgets for hiring staff for state corporations that have received approvals from SCAC, the PSC and SRC jointly,” he said.
The public service employed 963,200 workers in 2021/22, which was a growth of 40,100 jobs from the 923,100 persons who were employed in 2020/21, according to the SRC.
Over the past seven years, employees in the public sector have increased by 188,500, from 774,700 in 2015/16, which translates to an annual average growth rate of 26,929 new jobs.
The public sector wage bill hit Sh1.055 trillion in 2021/22, having grown by 69.6 per cent from Sh622 billion by 2015/16, data from SRC shows.
