The latest reshuffle in the ranks of Permanent Secretaries indicates that the government is embracing more youth in top positions of the civil service. One of the triggers of the Gen-Z uprisings of June 2024 was the grievance that youth had not been appointed to the top echelons of government.
The youth want senior positions in the government such as permanent secretaries, cabinet secretaries, commissioners, directors general, inspector general, attorney general, chief of general staff, KRA commissioner general, CBK governor, vice chancellors, chief justice, MDs/CEOs of state corporations, and other such high-ranking positions in the public service. I have listened to and read their arguments for these demands, and I can summarise them here.
They argue that the old guard are tired; they need to retire and create space for younger people; the youth are educated and energetic; many countries around the world have youthful leaders; old guard cannot cope with the speed of change in the modern world; they cannot be trusted to plan for a future that does not belong to them; the youth have a knack for creativity and innovation; and that there is a high level of unemployment among the youth.
Let’s try to understand this issue. The Kenyan law defines the youth as people who are 35 years and below.
The responsibility of a government is to protect life and property of its citizens. The government maintains a well-equipped security apparatus for protecting citizens and their properties from physical harm or damage. Protecting human life requires much more than providing physical security and encompasses availing opportunities for citizens to earn a decent living.
In this respect, the government’s responsibility is to create an enabling environment for the private sector to thrive and create decent jobs for citizens. For the government to effectively undertake its governance responsibility, it has to put in place good laws and embrace them in the running of public affairs. Besides good laws, a country should have competent, committed and ethically dependable public servants. The backbone of any state and government is a strong Civil Service.
A strong Civil Service is one with adequate numbers of technocrats in its ranks. Technocrats are developed over time through careful selection, training, grooming and progression through the ranks and responsibilities of the Civil Service. The stability of a country is predicated on the strength of its Public Service. The strength of a Civil Service does not develop organically just because people have been employed there. There is an established process of training and sharpening civil servants to grow and understand their roles.
That is why throughout the world, the Civil Service is the best training ground for the private sector, governments and international organizations. The much-vilified bureaucracy is not without its unique benefits. Bureaucracy exists for quality assurance, so that the government does not make rushed decisions that can be disastrous to its citizens. At each stage in the decision-making process in a bureaucracy, there are boxes to be ticked. Those small decisions add up to the final decision which is quality-assured through a water-tight process.
Head of Public Service Felix Koskei makes his remarks during a consultative meeting held between the Executive Office of the President and Civil Society Organizations on October 19, 2023 at the Bomas of Kenya.
Photo credit: Francis Nderitu| Nation Media Group
That is what happens in properly functioning countries across the globe. Politicians are typically interested in being re-elected into office, and may therefore, make decisions for political expediency. Civil servants do not have such luxury because they suffer the consequences of bad decisions as politicians take credit for good ones. That is why it is disturbing to hear the youth demand to be appointed to senior positions in the Civil Service. Some of the questions that linger in my mind include how the youth will handle very high-level responsibilities without the necessary preparation. What would be terribly wrong if the youth patiently pursued technical or professional training, and developed relevant skills, knowledge and attitudes that would prepare them for higher responsibilities in future?
If all the youth want big jobs, who will do the technical work that strengthens the backbone of the Civil Service?
After the youth get to the top in their twenties or early thirties, what will they be doing for the next thirty or more years? More disturbing is the fact that these young people are usually exalted to very high positions, and once there is regime change, they are dropped without sufficient experience to start any meaningful careers.
Who will be guiding the leaders on the right technical decisions to make if everyone wants to go to the top without working towards it? If the youth want top jobs, let them become politicians, but not Civil Servants. I don’t think it would be beneficial for the country to fill high-level positions with the youth who will be trying to learn on the job, yet they have opportunities to learn and grow from lower levels. Technical decision-making can only be done by those who have the technical skills.
Those who do not have the requisite skills should either go to spaces such as politics where high level of training is not demanded or take time and diligently learn the skills over time. There should be no two ways about it. Imagine a situation where a thirty-year old greenhorn with no post-university experience is made the PS for the National Treasury to make financial decisions for the whole country! Similarly, can you imagine a 25-year-old being elevated to be the Chief Justice or Chief of General Staff!
While the so-called old guard need to create space for others to come in, that should happen organically as mandatory retirement age beckons, and those in line to succeed them take over.
If the youth are exposed to appropriate opportunities for training and progressive growth, they have a high likelihood of becoming more dependable public servants. Let us not rush them to positions that they are ill-prepared to handle, then when they fail, we point fingers and say “look, the youth cannot perform.” A country that cares about its youth builds their capacity for decent jobs and enterprise development, but not rush them into positions that they cannot sustain on their own.
Prof Ongore is a Public Finance and Corporate Governance Scholar at the Technical University of Kenya, and a former Chief Manager at KRA.
