LABOUR-KENYA: Trimming the Civil Service – Visionary or Unnecessary?

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Joyce Mulama

NAIROBI, Jun 1 2004 (IPS) - With large-scale retrenchments looming over Kenya’s civil service, union officials say they have presented research to government showing that the ranks of public employees are already being substantially thinned by retirement and other factors.

The Secretary General of the Civil Servants Union of Kenya, Alphayo Nyakundi, told IPS this week (May 31) that about 6,000 workers leave government employment annually through death, retirement and dismissal – making retrenchments unnecessary.

“We (the union and government) met last week and presented a research we conducted on the effects of retrenchment. This is why we will continue saying ‘no’ to the exercise,” Nyakundi said during an interview in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

On May 12, Minister of State for Provincial Administration and National Security Chris Murungaru announced that 21,338 civil servants would be retrenched over a period of four years from July 2004 to June 2008, (Murungaru is also Acting Minister of Public Service). This was in a bid to reduce the civil service wage bill from 9.7 percent of gross domestic product to 7.2 percent. Previous initiatives to cut the bill, said Murungaru, had failed to deliver the goods.

“This (the figure of 9.7 percent) is quite high when compared to other countries within the region and similar developing economies,” the minister told journalists at a press conference in Nairobi. “Currently, the civil service wage bill consumes about 70 percent of the government recurrent expenditure, leaving only 30 percent for operations and maintenance expenditure.”

Murungaru’s statements prompted a furious response from the civil servants union. “If the government does not rescind its decision, we shall call a national strike. We shall withdraw our services and paralyse government operations,” Nyakundi told IPS during a separate interview earlier in May.

“We are not going to be sacrificial lambs of government’s decisions influenced by the donor community.”

This was a reference to appeals from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank for Kenya to reduce the size of its civil service in return for aid.

Murungaru has denied that government is reacting to pressure from donors to lay off workers. “These civil service reforms are home-grown and are meant to create a leaner, efficient and effective public service, have a well remunerated, motivated and competent workforce, and have a well equipped public service of high integrity,” he said last month.

Murungaru also noted that the retrenchment programme, which will cost government and donors about 123 million dollars, offers civil servants a much better severance package than was the case with previous retrenchment exercises.

A first round of lay-offs in 1994 spanned five years, and cost the government about 103 million dollars. It targeted 40,672 workers.

However, claims of largesse by government have been overshadowed by allegations from the Kenya Retrenched Workers Association that some of the civil servants who were laid off four years ago have yet to receive their packages.

During a press conference in Nairobi last week Christine Ndegwa, the association’s national secretary, also told reporters that the 2000 retrenchment exercise had been undermined by corruption.

In addition, authorities have also been haunted by the fact that the ruling National Rainbow Coalition government gained office on promises of increasing employment opportunities for Kenyans – not reducing them.

“How can the same government, which came to power on a platform of creating jobs now decide to render citizens jobless?” asks Francis Atwoli, Secretary General of the Central Organisation of Trade Unions, an umbrella body for labour groups. “It is now emerging that we elected conmen into office.”

President Mwai Kibaki, elected in December 2002, has pledged to create 500,000 jobs annually. Government remains elusive on the subject of how many employment opportunities have been created thus far.

The Kenya Human Rights Commission says authorities should consult closely with representatives of civil servants in discussions about trimming the number of government employees. However, it also notes that there is an argument for cutting the civil service.

“If we have an overflowing civil service and all tax payers’ money is being spent on paying them (civil servants), then it does not make sense. There is need for a leaner workforce so that the rest of the money saved can be directed to boost other sectors,” Steve Ouma, Deputy Executive Director of the commission, told IPS.

Such words are of little use to Samuel Kariuki (not his real name), who served in Kenya’s government for 20 years – rising through the ranks to become a senior civil servant. In 1994, all that changed.

Kariuki found himself laid off, and facing a bleak future. The retrenchment package he received amounted to just over 500 dollars.

“I felt robbed and bitter and wondered how I could make up for all the years lost. After deep reflection, I felt the only way out was to resort a life of crime, which could be facilitated if I owned a gun,” he told IPS in an interview in the Kiambu district, about 30 kilometres from the capital.

“I discovered I could purchase a point 38 pistol in Nairobi with 100 dollars, and set off into a life of robbery. I was pained that having been faithful to my employer for two decades, the society had decided to reward me with a mockery of 512 dollars. I no longer saw the value of honesty and so I was determined to use the gun for survival.”

Fortunately, Kariuki’s friends managed to talk him out of this plan. He now struggles to run a small food business, which he set up using the package he received from government.