Row over govt plans to lay off 19,000 county workers in bid to reduce wage bill

Kisii Governor James Ongwae, who is representing the Council of Governors in the Inter-Governmental Steering Committee for CARPS. He insisted that the plan was never to lay off any workers even as the national government made fresh proposals to lay off 19,000 county workers. FILE PHOTO | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • The government is proposing to retrench up to 40,000 workers from both the national and the county governments in order to save money.
  • The national government has 72,923 workers, about 36 per cent of the total number of workers in public service.
  • Kisii Governor James Ongwae insisted that the plan had never been to cause job losses.
  • Machakos County has been singled out in the report as among those that resisted the CARPS initiative and even refused to take part in having its staff evaluated.

A row is simmering between counties and the national government over fresh proposals to lay off 19,000 workers from the counties.

This is despite a proposal by the counties to hire 192,000 new staff to help in delivering various services and new roles transferred to the county governments effectively.

But the national government, keen to reduce the wage bill currently standing at Sh550 billion, is proposing to retrench up to 40,000 workers from both the national and the county governments in order to save money.

A biometric audit ordered by the President on all public workers across the country that began in July 2014 revealed that counties have a total of 126,998 staff so far, accounting for 64 per cent of the total workforce in the country.

The national government has 72,923 workers, about 36 per cent of the total number of workers in public service.

But the counties want their numbers increased to 319,183.

NO JOB LOSSES

Kisii Governor James Ongwae, who is representing the Council of Governors in the Inter-Governmental Steering Committee for Capacity Assessment and Rationalisation of the Public Service (CARPS), insisted that the plan had never been to cause job losses.

“The whole idea was never to send people home, (and) whatever proposals the committee has made will have to go to the Council of Governors and later even to the summit before we can make a final decision on that matter,” he said.

He warned that the council may not tolerate proposals to retrench workers, adding that if the same was to happen then only the national government workers will be affected.

He added that there are alternative ways of addressing any excesses in county government spending on salaries and that retrenchment is usually the last resort.

“Excesses can be tackled through other channels such as the redistribution and the retraining of the current staff. No one need lose their job,” he added.

But with the county governments planning to hire more staff, a clash seems inevitable, even as some of the counties have already shown open resistance to the staff rationalisation efforts being made by the national government.

The CARPS programme report, prepared by a committee consisting of members from both the national and county governments, proposes that 19,701 of staff in counties be sent home.

These are expected to leave their respective offices through various means such as voluntary retirement, natural attrition, and voluntary separation among others.

FREEZE RECRUITMENT

Meanwhile, general recruitment will be frozen until the desired level of staff reduction is attained.

The report has also revealed that the primary target for the retrenchment is former county council staff, most of whom have been found to be underqualified for their current positions.

But not everyone is supporting this effort to relieve the wage bill burden that has plagued the country since devolution took off two and a half years ago.

Machakos County has been singled out in the report as among those that resisted the CARPS initiative and even refused to take part in having its staff evaluated.

Governor Ongwae, who is also the chairman of the human resources committee of the Council of Governors, told the Nation that the report is still in its very early draft stages and that it is yet to be tabled before the council.

But the report paints a gloomy picture for counties, with tensions already rising between workers who were absorbed from the defunct county councils and new employees.

“Twenty four counties proposed staffing levels which were in excess of 100 per cent. Only four counties, Nyeri, Narok, Busia and Nairobi, have proposed lower staffing levels,” reads the report.

IGNORED TA ADVISE

Some county governments, the report reveals, have continued to recruit large numbers of staff in spite of the Transition Authority advising against it and emerging fiscal strains resulting in the ballooning wage bills.

But it is noteworthy that the planned increases in the number of workers were dominated by recruitment in the health sector and in early childhood development (ECD), which are considered priority areas in global staffing norms.

Even so, the report adds, county governments still ended up proposing exceedingly high numbers of staff increases.

“This was most conspicuous in the cases of Homa Bay and Kisii counties,” the report notes.

The report, however, established that counties have been largely compliant with the gender-rule requirement after achieving the 50-50 opportunities sharing grid.

Of the 126,998 public servants in the counties, 63,111 are women while 63,887 are men, making the sharing almost equal.