World Bank Asks Kenyan Govt to Freeze New Hirings for 2 Years: "Redeploy Existing Staff"
- The World Bank has recommended a two-year freeze on new public service hiring in Kenya to address the country’s unsustainable wage bill
- The bank urged the government to conduct a nationwide skills audit, redeploy existing staff, and streamline staffing structures instead of resorting to retrenchments
- The report warned that rising recurrent spending is driven by bloated travel budgets, skewed allowances, and inefficient payroll systems
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Elijah Ntongai, a journalist at TUKO.co.ke, has over four years of financial, business, and technology research and reporting experience, providing insights into Kenyan and global trends.
The World Bank has recommended a two-year freeze on new hiring in Kenya’s public service.
Source: Twitter
In its latest Public Finance Review, the World Bank urged the government to redeploy current staff and conduct a nationwide skills audit to curb rising wage expenditures and improve service delivery.
The global lender stressed that Kenya’s wage bill is unsustainable, driven by inefficient staffing structures, bloated travel budgets, and skewed allowance systems.
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The Bank warned that without decisive reforms, ballooning recurrent spending would continue to strain the country’s limited fiscal space ahead of the 2025/26 budget.
“Adopting a temporary hiring freeze can make space for the government to review compensation structures and assess the efficient allocation of existing civil servants,” the report noted.
It pointed out that with many civil servants set to retire in the near future, the freeze provides an opportunity to streamline the workforce without resorting to retrenchment or wage cuts.
The Bank also emphasised the need to redeploy staff into critical service areas such as health, education, and water resource management, sectors likely to face pressure from growing demand and climate-related challenges.
However, the report makes clear that sectors with acute staffing needs could be exempted from the freeze.
World Bank calls for better payroll management
In addition to the hiring freeze, the World Bank called for urgent human resource reforms, including tighter payroll oversight through the Human Resource Information System for Kenya (HRIS-Ke) and the elimination of the controversial “market adjustment allowance.”
This allowance, originally meant to compensate for skill shortages, has been blamed for distorting pay scales and contributing to runaway wage inflation.
To enhance transparency and fiscal discipline, the Bank proposed that skill-based pay be embedded into basic salaries, aligned more closely with private-sector benchmarks.
“Performance-based pay systems can incentivise productivity and efficiency, while enhancing transparency and accountability,” the report stated.
Source: Twitter
World Bank faults Kenya's per diems
The World Bank further raised concerns about Kenya’s bloated public wage bill, pinpointing excessive allowances, especially for travel, and unstandardised compensation as major cost drivers.
Earlier on TUKO.co.ke, the lender revealed that civil servants earn an average of $513 (KSh 66,000) per day during overseas travel.
The World Bank has recommended adopting UNDP or internal ministerial rates to reduce daily costs by up to $187 per officer.
It proposed halving the KSh 19.6 billion travel budget, scrapping the distortionary market adjustment allowance, and implementing standardised pay structures to rein in spending.
The Bank also highlighted KSh 10.7 billion lost to payroll inefficiencies and irregular claims, urging urgent reforms to protect scarce public resources.
Source: TUKO.co.ke
