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Kenya’s public sector productivity is way below the threshold needed for economic transformation, Cabinet Affairs PS Idris Dokota has said.
He said this is why the government has a huge wage bill, about 47 per cent of the revenue, which is unsustainable.
According to the Salaries and Remuneration Commission, the wage bill should only take a maximum of 35 per cent of the revenue.
Dokota said on Friday that Kenya’s public service needs to be more productive if the government is to achieve the economic growth it envisages.
That is why the public sector reforms have been introduced to ensure more productivity and a lesser relative wage bill.
However, the PS was quick to allay fears of retrenchment, saying the Kenya Kwanza administration will not go that route.
Instead, the government will focus on generating more revenue while enhancing productivity.
Public servants have been signing performance contracts for the last 20 years, but productivity has still been low because there is no linkage between performance contracts and productivity.
“Again, there is no linkage between productivity and the strategic plan. We have five-year strategic plans but the productivity is not there. The relationship between the input and the output is not felt,” he said.
That is why, Dokota said, public servants are not concerned even when they spend a lot on input that produces less output.
This has led to a lot of duplication and wastage of public resources over the years, he said.
“So we are hoping that this time round things will change so that we work on reducing wastage in the public sector. The challenge is on how to get the right data, how to analyse it and how to interpret it to see the level of productivity the public sector generates,” the PS said.
He spoke at the conclusion of the productivity mainstreaming training for the Coast region at the Kenya Coast National Polytechnic in Mombasa.
Dokota said one of the areas to improve is on data collection and analysis so as to develop a labour productivity index.
“Then the index will inform us on the next step to take,” he said.
The productivity mainstreaming training is a critical part in the public sector reforms being undertaken by the Kenya Kwanza administration.
The training started on November 20 across the country and is expected to end on December 8.
Mombasa deputy county commissioner Ronald Muiwawi said public servants in Kenya have for a long time been getting it wrong.
He said the private sector has been much more efficient and consequently earn more than those in the public service.
“We realise that in the private sector, much as they are result-oriented, their income is dependent on how much they are producing,” Muiwawi said.
On the contrary, those in the public service have been complacent because of the false sense of job security thus have no regard for productivity.
“They say ‘hii ni kazi ya serikali, haina haraka’ (This is government work, it has no urgency),” Muiwawi said.
He said for a long time, civil servants wake up in the morning with no objectives, no work plan, and no action plan on what to do and achieve in a day, week, month or year.
Muiwawi said some government departments are not working well because there are overlapping roles, duplication and repetition.
“But I think with this kind of training, we are able to iron out some of these emerging issues between our departments so that at the end of the day we can be accountable for the work we are doing on a daily basis,” he said.
Muiwawi said performance contracting should not just be a routine but a tool to guide productivity.
He said quarterly and mid-term reviews since performance contacting was introduced have been only on paper.
“As an individual I’d be happy that at the end of the day I can account for my work,” Muiwawi said.
He said civil servants wherever they are in the country should not wait for Nairobi to drive the country.
“I’ve always reminded officers that what we do at the grassroots is what guides even the Cabinet. The reports we generate are the ones which advise, guide and even inform Cabinet decisions,” Muiwawi said.
He said generation of proper reports from the 47 counties across the country will mean stronger policies that have better impact on the lives of Kenyans.
Muiwawi said many countries, like Botswana, benchmark with Kenya and end up having better productivity than Kenya.
“Why are we lagging behind? Botswana came and benchmarked with us but Botswana is very far ahead in terms of productivity," he said.
“If people are picking our documents to go and improve their countries, why can’t we use these documents and improve our own country?”
