During the presentation of the 2023/24 budget in Parliament, Treasury Cabinet Secretary Njuguna Ndung'u hinted at the possibility of a significant reduction in the number of lower-level employees in State corporations in order to address the issue of excessive staff.

 This excess workforce has not only negatively impacted service delivery but has also contributed to financial struggles within these corporations.

To tackle this problem, the Treasury has instructed the State Corporations Advisory Committee (SCAC) to initiate a program aimed at streamlining staff numbers, with a particular focus on support staff.

Ndung'u emphasized that numerous State corporations heavily rely on government funding to cover their payroll and other expenses.

However, the presence of bloated payrolls has placed a significant burden on the government, leading to unpaid statutory obligations and pension liabilities amounting to billions of shillings.

 Through its assessment, the Treasury has found that many of these corporations have an excessive number of support staff. The Public Service Commission (PSC) guidelines recommend a technical to support staff ratio of 70:30 to ensure effective service delivery.

Going forward, the committee will collaborate with the PSC and the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) to allocate staff to state corporations.

As a result of this initiative, state corporations that have more support staff than necessary are likely to declare redundancies. The Treasury also plans to prohibit state corporations that lack approval from the SCAC, PSC, and SRC from hiring new employees.

 In terms of statistics, the public service employed 963,200 individuals in 2021/22, which marked an increase of 40,100 jobs compared to the 923,100 employed in 2020/21, according to the SRC.

 Over the past seven years, there has been an increase of 188,500 employees in the public sector, rising from 774,700 in 2015/16, indicating an average annual growth rate of 26,929 new jobs.

Data from the SRC reveals that the public sector wage bill reached Sh1.055 trillion in 2021/22, reflecting a 69.6 percent growth from Sh622 billion in 2015/16.