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

Public Service Cabinet Secretary Moses Kuria now says the public service is set for stringent reforms, even as he directed that all government employees must retire at 60.

Kuria said there will be no extension for public servants when they get to retirement age and that no excuse will hold.

He urged the Principal Secretary in his Ministry to prepare and submit a report on this matter.
“When a public servant attains the age of 60, please go home. When some turn 58, they claim to have some disabilities so that more time can be added to them. No way! I have caught up with them,” said the CS.

The CS was speaking yesterday when he unveiled the National Youth Service (NYS) re-engineering programme at its headquarters in Ruaraka, Nairobi.

He added: “PS, I am waiting for your report on those who are misusing our generosity. The President has clearly said that once a public servant is 60, they should go home. Stop looking for excuses.”

Kuria also said he will push for enforcement of a policy that for any new hiring in the public service, an employee must first present NYS certificate, a move he stated will curb corruption and laziness.

He said he will prepare a memo for Cabinet approval to ensure this is actualised.

“Before someone is employed by the Government they must go through training at NYS so that even people to be at the Ministry of Labour, Water, Lands and all others and we make sure that we have traceability from the factory which they were created… and that factory is right here in NYS so that if I see someone is corrupt, I will come and ask the Director General,” said Kuria, who joined the Ministry a few weeks ago.

In other far-reaching transformations, Kuria said the next recruitment of 3,000 police officers in the National Police Service (NPS) and another 1,500 for Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) will exclusively be from NYS.

“Because I cannot come here empty handed, we have pushed to ensure that the remaining part of this year and I have a commitment from Inspector General of Police, Japhet Koome. I have cleared with him and agreed that in the next intake in two months for NPS, of 3000 officers will be recruited exclusively from NYS,” said Kuria, who donned NYS uniform in his debut parade.

“The other day you saw we had recruitment of Kenya Defence Forces and we said those with NYS certificates will be given a few slots but 10,000 people turned up. When it takes 10,000 people to come for 300 jobs, we have a lot of work to do,” he noted.

He vowed to revamp NYS, saying there will be establishment of NYS service enterprises, a company, which will be competitively bidding for national, county and private sector tenders.

Public service delivery

Similarly, Kuria said a call centre under the Pasha programme, to be domiciled at NYS Headquarters will be soon rolled out to handle feedback and complaints on public service delivery.

The programme is expected to give Kenyans an opportunity to report on matters service delivery.
He also said that there will be identification of employment opportunities in government and private sector as well as employment opportunities outside Kenya for NYS graduates.

Currently, Kuria said there are 900,000 public servants, with 52 per cent of tax collection going towards their recurrent expenditure.