The government has lifted a five-year hiring ban in parastatals. This is according to a memo from State House that was issued by the head of public service Joseph Kinyua. The memo has now given parastatals the green light to hire employees without seeking approval from the National Treasury first. The government had in 2017 issued a moratorium on recruitment that restricted new hiring to essential services such as security, health and education.
“State corporations with approved Human Resource Instruments will henceforth be exempt from the requirements of the Circular of 28th July 2017 and can therefore recruit staff, including replacement of staff in line with the State Corporations Advisory Committee approved staff establishment,” said Kinyua in the circular dated February 7, 2022.
The memo by Kinyua was directed at principal secretaries, Cabinet secretaries and CEO of parastatals. However, parastatals will still need to receive board approval and confirmation in writing from the National Treasury that they have the budget for the new employees. “The recruitment should, however, only be undertaken upon alignment with the approved human resource instruments and possession of written confirmation of requisite budgets for the recruitment and sustainability thereof from the National Treasury (as well as) existence of board resolutions approving the recruitment,” Kinyua added.
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In September 2020, the National Treasury cabinet secretary Ukur Yatani had issued a directive banning the hiring of civil servants for a period of three years. “It is government policy to contain the wage bill to the medium-term targets,” the CS had instructed.
According to Yatani, budget allocations for 2021-22 to 2023 -24 would only allow for normal wage drift to cater for movement from one salary scale to another. The lifting of the freeze is expected to boost uptake of jobs, with the government being the largest employer in the country.
