Listen to This Article Enhance your reading experience by listening to this article.

Public Service Cabinet Secretary Moses Kuria (pictured) has disclosed that the Ministry will undertake a radical and comprehensive reform of the public service to check the bloated wage bill.

 He said the Ministry is working on an initiative that will see it take full responsibility for negotiating all Collective Bargaining Agreements in the public sector.

 “I am going to crack the whip. My Ministry is going to be responsible for negotiating all CBAs because we are the human resource experts of the government,” Kuria said.

 He added: “The Head of Public Service and my Ministry are going to undertake  radical reforms of the public service. The initiative is going to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.”

 Kuria said the government plans to scrap professional-driven CBAs to ensure equity in salaries and other remunerations.  The CS made the remarks during the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) media briefing on Friday ahead of the 3rd National Wage Bill Conference to be held at the Bomas of Kenya for the next three days starting from today until Wednesday.

Kuria said that the high wage bill is robbing Kenyans’ of their hard-earned money, noting that they work for almost one million public servants.

Inflation

 “This is not a theoretical discussion, it is a question of morality, ethics and fairness,” stated the CS while hailing the National Treasury for instituting monetary policies that have seen a reduction in inflation and increase in foreign currency reserves to cover four months. 

SRC Chairperson Lyn Mengich said currently, 47.3 per cent of revenue is allocated to the wage bill, with over 60 per cent directed towards debt repayment.

 “We live in a resource-scarce nation. An expenditure on the public wage bill, government operations and maintenance, development and our international commitments all compete for limited resources that we generate as revenue,” she said.