State in the dark over half of its staff’s job performance

Public Service Commission chairperson Margaret Kobia. PHOTO | FILE 

By KIARIE NJOROGE, Gkiarie@ke.nationmedia.com

In Summary

• This makes it difficult for the government to identify top performers; a measure that is useful in promotions, pay increment and when preparing staff layoffs.

The government is not aware of the job performance of more than half of its workers, a new report reveals.

The Public Service Commission’s (PSC) annual report for the year ending June says that only 49.5 per cent of civil servants underwent performance appraisal.

Appraisals are assessments carried out periodically (usually every year) to measure employees’ productivity against set goals.

“Out of the 184,189 staff in MDAs (ministries, departments and agencies) 91,119 (49.5 per cent) had been appraised as required,” the PSC report said.

“The percentage of MDA staff appraised increased from 37 per cent in 2013/14 to 49.5 per cent, though on the contrary, half of the staff were not undergoing appraisal.”

This makes it difficult for the government to identify top performers; a measure that is useful in promotions, pay increment and when preparing staff layoffs.

Performance appraisals are common in the private sector and are used to determine how workers measure against their performance targets, informing pay rises, bonuses and promotions.

Constitution commissions and independent offices were the worst performing in conducting appraisals with only 32 per cent of their staff evaluated. Ministries had 48.4 per cent evaluated while State corporations had 50.5 per cent.

The PSC report raises questions on the criteria the government uses to promote staff or award pay rises. The commission says that there are “myriad inconsistencies and opaque career progression in the public service.” During the year, 9,900 civil servants were promoted.

Lack of appraisals in government creates room for promotion of underperforming individuals who often climb the career ladder through cronyism.

Inadequate appraisal looks set to mar efforts to review the size of the civil service as part of austerity measures meant to reduce the government wage bill and free up funds for use in economic development.

Earlier this year, the government told the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that it would retrench some workers because of the huge wage bill. The public wage bill is estimated at Sh568 billion or 11 per cent of the gross domestic product compared to the global best practice of seven per cent.

At Sh568 billion, the wage bill also stands at more than 50 per cent of total revenues against a globally recommended threshold of not more than 35 per cent.

The government ordered an audit of the public sector payroll last January to end the practice of corrupt officials claiming salaries on behalf of “ghost employees” — workers who have died, retired or deserted duty.

Lack of staff appraisals and tracking of public workers were partly to blame for the existence of ghost workers.

At the time, the government said an estimated Sh70 million was being paid out monthly to officers no longer employed in the service, or about Sh1.8 billion annually.

More than 12,000 false names were found on the payroll after authorities conducted a biometric registration of all civil servants in September.