The lawmakers are contemplating reforms, including amending the law, to reign in rogue public officers perpetuating ethnic imbalance in the public service.
Reports show that members of some minority communities have never been employed in the public service.
“What we have seen so far is a disaster. Certain communities have dominated public service since independence,” Marsabit Senator Mohamed Chute said.
Chute chairs the Senate’s National Cohesion, Equal Opportunity and Regional Integration Committee.
The senators spoke after a new report exposed the big ethnic disparities in government jobs, with the Public Service Commission disclosing the imbalance has been compounded by recent noncompetitive recruitments.
In its 2023 annual report, the PSC reveals that the Kikuyu and Kalenjin — the two communities that have held the presidency since independence — are grossly overrepresented in government.
Recent hiring of advisers in Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua's office and by Cabinet Secretaries has further entrenched the disparities, the report says.
“The noncompetitive appointments seemed to have compounded the problem of over representation of some communities, which are already overrepresented in the service,” the commission says.
At least 250 officers were appointed as personal staff in the office of the Deputy President and advisers to Cabinet Secretaries without competitive recruitment.
Overall, the Kikuyu and Kalenjin hold at least 51,994 and 43,983 jobs in government respectively.
Alarmingly, the report shows there are some communities that have not been employed in government at all.
These include the Dahalo, an endangered Cushitic community inhabiting the Coast.
The Maasai, Turkana, Luhya, Mijikenda and Kenyan Somalis are underrepresented in government.
The Senate’s National Cohesion, Equal Opportunity and Regional Integration Committee is currently inquiring into the ethnic and gender composition, and inclusion of people with disability in public service.
“This issue of tribalism in public service should be declared a national disaster. It is a big problem that we can no longer afford to sweep under the carpet,” Tharaka Nithi Senator Mwenda Gataya said.
The chairman revealed that the committee is working on a raft of proposals, including changing the labour laws to include tough penalties for heads of agencies who fail to adhere to the set criteria.
The Constitution and other laws provide for adherence to regional balance in hiring of public servants to ensure no region or community is sidelined.
“We have enough laws in this country. Regional balance is something enshrined in our Constitution. But people have ignored them because there is no punishment for those who don’t follow the law,” Chute said.
According to Chute, ethnic imbalance has been perpetuated by heads of the agencies who hire their relatives, friends and cronies.
Chute said the committee will push for affirmative action and other deliberate measures to ensure ethnic and gender balance is attained in the public service.
“We are going to recommend that they advertise in local radio stations. They must be deliberate in their adverts and encourage people from marginalised regions to apply,” Chute said.
In its ongoing inquiry, the committee has unearthed massive ethnic imbalance, with only five or six communities dominating up to 80 per cent of the workforce in some institutions.
For instance, Kalenjin, Kamba, Luo, Luhya and Kikuyu constitute 73.97 per cent of the workforce at the National Social Insurance Fund.
Last week, the committee put NSSF chief executive officer David Koross to task over what they termed "perpetuation of the ethnic imbalance at the state corporation."
This was after it emerged the fund has continued to hire staff from some dominant ethnic communities even though 17 tribes are not represented there.
“Some of the tribes in this country are just outsiders. They are only needed during elections, but they are nowhere in the public service,” Gataya said.
Nominated Senator Raphael Chimera posed, “How technical is NSSF that no person from Kwale county, with the communities there, can be employed?”
On Tuesday the committee met the management of the National Irrigation Authority and the Export Processing Zones, where damning revelations of the composition of their staff emerged.
At NIA, only 16 out the 46 ethnic communities are employed.
Persons from only 18 out of the 46 communities are employed at the EPZ.
“Very soon, we are going to take action. Imagine, from these agencies, there is no one from Isiolo, Samburu, Marsabit Wajir, Lamu and Garissa,” Chute said.
“We are going to make sure that those who cause or make such things happen are held liable. We cannot continue like this as a country.”
Worse, only six communities constitute 78 per cent of the EPZ workforce. They are Kalenjin, Kikuyu, Kisii, Kamba, Luo and Luhya.
“Why are other communities taking their children to school? Why are they voting in the first place? Of all the agencies that have appeared before us, none has employed a Tharaka,” Gataya said.
At the Kenya Ports Authority, 2, 323 employees out of a total of 12, 525 are Kalenjin, with the Kikuyu coming second with 1,944 staffers.
Other communities with the highest number of representatives at KPA are Luo (1,850), Luhya (1,500), Kamba (1,372), Mijikenda (850) and Meru (372).
The agency has employed people from 38 out of 46 ethnic communities in the country.
However, only 13 of the workforce are people with disability.
Earlier this month, the courts nullified the hiring of revenue service assistants by the Kenya Revenue Authority over ethnic imbalance.
High Court judge William Musyoka ruled that the exercise, which was conducted by KRA last year, was skewed in favour of the Kikuyu and Kalenjin communities to the disadvantage of others.
“A declaration that the June 2023 recruitment of the 1,406 revenue service assistants was unconstitutional, as it offends the preamble of the Constitution and the provisions of Articles 10, 27, 56 and 32 (g)(h)(i) of the Constitution,” the judge said.
A report presented to the committee by the Public Service Commission shows that the Kikuyu control 22 per cent of the workforce in ministries and departments.
Kalenjins come second at 14 pecent followed by Luhya at 11.83 per cent, Luhya at 10.36 percent and Kisii (7.4 per cent).
“Some 36 communities were represented in the ministries and state departments in line with the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics 2019 census while nine ethnic communities were not represented,” the report states.
Earlier, the commission revealed that the Kikuyu and Kalenjin are grossly overrepresented in government.
The report by the Independent Review Commission on the post-election violence in 2007, otherwise known as the Krigler report, revealed that negative ethnicity contributed to the chaos.
“The fact that both the police and military are perceived historically to have been recruited along ethnic lines to protect the particular government of the day has increased the likelihood of their breaking down along ethnic lines in a crisis and being either unable or unwilling to maintain law and order impartially,” the report says.
