Kenyas ageing public service workers poses a challenge to handling the fast-changing economic and technological environment.
According to a report by the African Union and the United Nations Development Programme, public sector staffing and capacity building still remain a challenge
The report titled Making the AfCFTA Work for Women and Youth shows that Kenya and other African countries with elderly civil servants may be exposed to increased costs for duties that could otherwise be done by younger skilled employees.
“Skills such as negotiation of agreements, trade policy analysis and in trade law are not adequate among many African countries with aged civil servants, leading to the proliferation of very costly foreign consultants,” reads the report.
It further shows that the public sector is highly understaffed with the technical capacity of staff to handle the fast-changing economic and technological environment wanting.
This, combined with public sector employment freeze due to budgetary constraints, the report notes, portends a major problem.
“A country like Kenya has an aged civil service, many of whom will be retiring in the next few years, yet little has been done in succession planning,” the UN report read in part.
Last September, the National Treasury extended the hiring freeze in parastatals and government ministries, dashing hopes of thousands of jobless Kenyans who were looking at change of administration to secure jobs.
The then National Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yatani directed accounting officers to shelve allocations for hiring new workers signalling an extension of the policy into the new administration.
The freeze on new hiring was effected after the public sector wage bill for the year ended July 2022 hit around Sh958.5 billion for the 2021-22 fiscal year from Sh615 billion in 2015.
This highlighted the country’s struggles to tame spending on salaries and allowances for government workers.
To remedy this, the report recommends that Kenya and African governments invest in proper staffing and capacity building of public institutions.
“This is the way they will be able to keep up with the demands of their obligations such as implementation of the AfCFTA,”
Additionally, its says, governments should strive to be competitive in their remuneration to attract highly skilled professionals who can transform public service delivery.
In order to sufficiently comply with and benefit from agreements such as the AfCFTA, WTO agreements and regional economic agreements, AU and UNDP say it’s vital that African governments create trade-enabling institutions that will support their implementation.
