Stop viewing public workers as a burden

 

 

“Morning people” are often up and fully alert at 4 or 5am, but begin to shut down in the early afternoon. FILE  Fotosearch

 

By  ABIDAN MWACHI

Is freezing the civil servants wage bill a sure mechanism of fostering economic growth or does it just end at that; a low wage bill for the country? First, I wonder why taxpayers are paying a lot of money to sustain the Salaries and Remunerations Commission.

For a country that has its eyes set on achieving economic emancipation, judged by the gusto the new government has decided to correct most of the errors from the past, I must be fair to note that they indeed do present a great break from the past.

There is urgent need to address the public sector wage bill with keenness and pragmatism and neatly lay out strategies that would see us achieve an amicable bare minimum.

This must be looked at within a broader context of issues and every attempt made to avoid simplistic inferences and conclusion. The cause-affect analysis has to be well comprehended too.

The single most important contribution to the economy is the Kenyan people and its dedicated workforce. It will be prudent therefore to assume that increasing the output of our workers should result in an improved GDP.

What we need to lower this wage percentage of the total GDP should practically focus on the denominator and to a much less extent the numerator.

Efforts should be put in place to encourage and compensate increased output, to reward workers’ productivity and set down a cascade of motivated and productive workers in competition not only with themselves but with set targets.

Attempts to decrease the numerator, which in this case is the wage bill, will have confounding effects on the productivity of the workforce and subsequently obliterate any conceived positive effect.

The seduction to direct inferences is very tempting. The failure to recognize the impact brought by the social pillars of our economy is also extremely fanciful. The bottom line effect would be to assume that these ‘non important’ sectors, whose effects to the economy are less than direct, can be ignored and we get away with it.

For instance what is the impact of teachers, accountants, nurses and doctors on the economy? These immeasurable contributors are likely to suffer from this kind of ‘direct-relation’ mindset.

The move to freeze salary hikes must be viewed holistically and should not be applied selectively. At the same time parallel efforts must be rolled out to address the high cost of living. Choosing to start on one and leaving the other behind would be akin to setting out to row with a paddle and going for the boat later.

We cannot have a rising cost of living with a diminishing remuneration. In the same breath, we cannot vilify the very resource concerned with improving the country’s productivity and await positive results on the other end