Civil Servants To be Employed On Contract As Gov’t Scraps Permanent Employment

Civil Servants To be Hired on Contract in Kenya

The government has put forward a proposal to have all civil servants employed on contract in a bid to scrap permanent and pensionable kind of employment.

The Cabinet Secretary for public service Moses Kuria said this while addressing the press conference on Tuesday saying this proposal is underway and by Friday 26, 2024 it will be presented to the Cabinet for review.

If this proposal sails through all government employees will now be hired on contractual basis.

Referring to the country’s bloated wage bill, Kuria attributed this to high salaries paid to civil servants amounting to almost half of the total revenue collected in the country.

The Cabinet Secretary highlighted some of the measures that the government ought to take in order to lower the wage bill and stop overburdening taxpayers in the republic of Kenya.

“Last week, we were in the wage bill conference and pointed out that one million consuming 50 per cent of our tax revenue means there’s something wrong. That is why if the doctors think we are against them, this week on Friday, I will be moving to Cabinet to present a proposal which if Cabinet approves, all government workers from drivers to cleaners to everyone will be converted to contract. No one will be on permanent terms.

“If you want to be permanent, show me that even your tenure on earth is permanent, we are all on a contract basis even on this earth,” Kuria stated.

Kuria went ahead to question the striking doctors on why they did not suspend the strike in accordance to the court order issued and resume to work.

He instructed the payroll team in his office to stop the union dues for doctors henceforth.

“This circus is over. 14 per cent of the Cabinet and governors have been coming here for three days. The amount of humiliation that we have been taken through by the union is unimaginable,” he pointed out.

“All good things must have a sacrifice. I have instructed my payroll people not to remit the dues for this union because I will be abetting crime and disrespecting court orders. Enough is enough!”

The CS said he was unhappy with a number of issues from the doctors saying that they are dishonest in their demands and above all disobeying court orders.

Civil Servants To be Hired on Contract in Kenya

He also asked why the public and even the media are not holding the doctors accountable when disobeying court orders.

Kuria said if it was the government disobeying court orders, Kenyans and even the media would have staged relentless attacks to the government.

Kuria also expressed his frustrations on why Kenyans have shifted their focus from the doctors’ strike to Health CS Nakhumincha.

“I have been around several CSs for Health and in those regimes there were industrial actions but matters were restricted to the issues at hand. But for my sister, there has been a lot of personalisation of matters. The women’s association has not been speaking up about it,” Kuria uttered.