Deputy President William Ruto on Tuesday mentioned senior Government officials who will be sent packing after a thorough scrutiny on the Public Service Commission (PSC).

Speaking during a luncheon held to honor outgoing Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) Sarah Serem, Mr. Ruto firmly stated that the public wage bill must be controlled and this means sacking some officials.

Investigations

He noted that the Government will conduct investigations to eliminate any duplications and excesses in the civil service.

Ruto also instructed the Ministry of Public Service to work with Public Service Commission of Kenya (PSCK) and the 47 County Public Service Boards (CPSB) to ensure the ballooning wage bill is controlled as a matter of urgency.

“All policy efforts of the last five years to bring down the wage bill are being eroded by the huge numbers in the public service. National and county governments should support harmonisation of salaries for public servants as part of the grand strategy to reduce wage bill,” Ruto said.

Counting Days

At the same time, the DP highlighted that senior Government officials who have employed numerous advisors to help them carry out their work are counting days before they are sacked.

He mentioned that it was useless to be employed for a job then appoint other people to do the work. The DP blamed such individuals for the inflated public wage bill.

“Those public servants who are hiring advisors to do the job they are employed or elected to do must be ready to go home because this has contributed to the mess in the wage bill we find ourselves in.

"How can a Cabinet Secretary have five to six advisors? It simply means you do not know what you are doing. Just resign. Some of us when we were ministers didn’t have advisors," he noted.

Kenya’s public wage bill now stands at a whopping Sh627 billion and likely to hit Sh650 billion by the end of the 2017/18 financial year.