KENYA
The Kenyan Government says it plans to do away with permanent positions in the Public Service and, from 1 July, will hire new members only on three-year contracts.
The Public Service Commission (PSC) — the statutory body that employs Public Servants — said new employees would be put on the contracts with clearly defined performance targets that must be met before the contract was renewed.
Chair of the PSC, Stephen Kirogo (pictured) said this would ensure people were retained in the Public Service based only on their performance.
“This is a major policy shift in human resources that will reward hard work and sanction poor work,” Mr Kirogo said.
“The decision to embrace this far-reaching change in the Public Service is informed by thorough studies, which have revealed that lazy staff are baggage.”
He said the PSC had done research that showed that people often changed jobs after two or three years.
“Our new policy will address turnover and retain competent skills,” Mr Kirogo said.
In what could set the stage for gruelling court battles with the unions, the Government will also scrap the current scheme of service and introduce career progression guidelines that will see some job groups scrapped.
Under the proposed guidelines, the promotion of PS staff will be based on the existence of vacancies, minimum qualifications per grade and professional development.
“We shall definitely scrap some job groups to align them with the new grading structure, which will give more emphasis to performance and efficiency,” Mr Kirogo said.
“We at the PSC intend to be more brutal when it comes to addressing the wage bill.”
The Government’s decision to reform the Public Service has been informed by the need to tame the ballooning public sector wage bill, which now stands at KES733 billion (A$10 billion) annually.
Nairobi, 20 June 2019
