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The government yesterday read the Riot Act to corrupt civil servants, warning that it will crack the whip on anyone found culpable.

In a nearly three-hour lecture to heads of government departments and agencies, Head of Public Service Felix Koskei outlined a raft of measures to curb vices such as corruption, chronic absenteeism and refusal to go on leave which he said were hindering the delivery of services in the public sector.

For a start, Koskei directed that all public servants must ensure they exhaust all their leave days or ensure that by June next year they have no more than 15 unused days.

Koskei termed the tendency of absconding annual leave as indicators of corruption, adding that the government will not compensate leave days with money.

“We will issue a circular tomorrow (today) to all ministries, those who have accumulated leave days must proceed on leave. Give others breathing space,” Koskei told senior government officials yesterday.

The Public Service boss said many senior Government officials have not been proceeding on leave, many choosing to stay in office on the pretext that nobody within their department is equal to the task.

“We have looked at the records and have seen that senior public officials have many unutilised leave days. The explanations that they give is that there is nobody to take over or there is too much work and therefore, there is no time to take leave,” Koskei noted.

He added: “Annual leave is mandatory and has to be taken. Each and every officer with accumulated leave days must proceed on leave. Government policy is that you can only carry forward a half of your leave days which is 15 in a year. In this Financial Year its only those 15 days that will be carried forward.”

He ruled out any possibility of the government computing the days into money, adding all government departments have adequate and competent officers that can perform in acting capacity.

Public debt

“Each government agency has qualified officers who are capable of ensuring that the work goes on without stopping,” he noted.

Wading into the issue of ballooning public debt, Koskei said the government is waiting on the report by Special Committee established by the cabinet to verify all pending bills inherited from the previous government.

“About the pending bills, the budget that we have come up with will be aligned to the various projects that have been identified so that we do not have additional pending bills going forward.

We have to ensure we are paying for only work done or services delivered. The Special committee report is with the Attorney General and will soon be published. National Treasury is ready to clear those bills,” Koskei said.

Speaking at the same event, National Treasury Principal Secretary Chris Kiptoo faulted State agencies leadership over wastage of public money on avoidable expenses, saying the agencies are legally procuring services but opting for wasteful expenditure.

Air tickets

“If in your department you choose to travel to Mombasa from Nairobi, why not use SGR instead of buying air tickets?” And that way you reduce your travel expenditure. In the coming supplementary budget, if you have not made good use of your budget, we will take it and give to someone else who have demonstrated that they require that money,” Kiptoo said.

Additionally, Kosgei criticised the agencies for failing to address audit queries that have locked many agencies.

According to the Auditor General report of the 2021/22 Financial Year, over 1,000 Government agencies have serious audit queries.

“We have a persistent challenge of audit queries that are not closed. Many government officials have not taken keen interest to look at the issues around the operations of their respective offices, look at the expenditure, look at evidences that are required to support those expenditures,” Koskei said.

He stated that the agencies have been encountering perennial challenges in Parliament when Attorney General raises audit issues every other year and that the agencies must ensure that all pending audit queries have to be sorted out by October 2.

“We have resolved today together with State corporations’ heads, going forward in this Financial Year we will have zero fault audit. This is the only way to ensure efficiency in terms of expenditure of the scarce resource. We have to know how the money we collect from citizens is spent and which projects are completed,” Koskei explained. “We don’t want any audit report that is qualified. We want all the issues to be sorted out.”

The Head of Public Service hinted that the government is formulating a reform agenda that will ensure all State agencies are efficient, effective and full operational as required.

“We have to reflect and see areas that we have to reform including structural issues, legal challenges and behaviour and character of our people. This time around we are not going to allow individuals to misuse public funds, each and every officer will carry his own cross and the president has given a clear directive about that. No shilling from taxpayer’s money will be stolen or be misused or wasted,” he said.