Eric Wainaina @EWainaina

Lazy and incompetent civil servants who have been overemphasising on the acquisition of high academic papers to get promotions could be in for a rude shock following a proposal by the Public Service Commission (PSC) to give more emphasis on hard work.

The government has been using the Scheme of Service to promote its staff and PSC—the statutory body that employs civil servants—is now considering shifting to competency requirements for career progression which make an individual’s output the main framework.

The move, which aims to promote a culture of hard work among the employees, follows concerns that some of the parameters used in promoting civil servants have not been facilitating acquisition of the envisaged skills, competence and other attributes required at high levels.

This, together with the parameter of how many years one has served in a specific position, means that lazy and incompetent employees have been finding their way into high offices in which they cannot deliver as expected, leading to wanting work output.

“The commission appreciates the need for competency-based programmes in facilitating performance, productivity and more citizen centric service.

In this regard, the commission has commissioned a study to evaluate the relevance and suitability of existing promotion courses in equipping public servants with necessary skills, competence and attributes,” said PSC chairman Stephen Kirogo.

To that effect, Kirogo, in a circular dated March 11, sent to relevant government officers and copied to Head of Public Service  Joseph Kinyua, said they are in the process of replacing Schemes of Service with career progression guidelines.

“In view of the transitional arrangement, the commission has suspended the requirement of the Strategic Leadership Development Programme (SLDP) and Masters Degree as a parameter for promotion of public officers to senior position.

In the mean time, promotion on public officers will be based on requisite experience and individual performance,” Kirogo said.

Good performance

However, the requirement for Masters Degree for holders of positions of directors and positions graded as CSG 5 will remain.

This means, going back to school alone is not enough and officers will have to prove themselves through good performance.

Strategic Leadership Development Programme which is offered at the Kenya School of Government targets officers in the public service organisations in job group “N” and above or their equivalents and senior managers in the private sector organizations

Yesterday, PSC Chief Executive Simon Rotich told People Daily that the changes seek to promote the culture of hard work within the public service since for one to get a job promotion, their performance will be evaluated and if it’s wanting, they won’t be promoted.

“Performance management regulations is undergoing stakeholder engagement so that once adopted a long career progression guidelines, it will help in guiding on promotions of public servants unlike the past where you had to serve for a specific period to be able to move to next level irrespective of performance,” Rotich said.

Under the present framework, though it recognises that values such as transparency, inclusivity, merit, parity of treatment and non-discrimination, among others, it has not been fully actualize and has given lazy officers option of turning on their desktops, hang their coats on the chairs and leave office for hours.

This is not the first time the commission is trying to reign in lazy officers.  In September last year, the commission announced that it had set up a Citizen Contact Centre (CCC) where disgruntled Kenyans will report lazy and skiving civil servants as part of its  in a radical measures aimed at taming the conundrum of absenteeism in the public service.