[kictanet] Reducing travel in go.ke

[S.M. Muraya]

Please note, (Internet Protocol) solutions are already being applied in the
Kenyan private sector that, by reducing travel, can save Kenya billions of
dollars annually :)

http://mobile.nation.co.ke/blogs/Wage-Bill-Government-Civil-Service-Funds/-/1949942/2246288/-/format/xhtml/-/50lq51z/-/index.html

POSTED  SUNDAY, MARCH 16, 2014 |  BY- PAUL MWANGI

*Every day is party time in government offices*

The attempt at bringing down the wage bill through pay cuts is incredibly
naive.

For slightly over 12 months since January 2012, I served as the Legal
Advisor to the Prime Minister. It was a position that placed me at the
highest levels of the Civil Service, with a pay grade of Job Group "U",
otherwise known as "PS level".

What I learnt and observed about government in that short period of time
makes me conclude that the President's attempt at bringing down the wage
bill by taking a 20 per cent pay cut, and enforcing the same across the
board, is incredibly naive. (READ: Backlash meets Uhuru's move to take
salary cut)

The problem with the exorbitant public wage bill is not the salaries. In
fact, I think it is a good thing that the government is now able to attract
competent staff and Kenyans will benefit from good public service, less
corruption and thus a more productive private sector.

The problem with Kenya's wage bill is wastage and abuse. All the way from
State House to the tea room at the ministries, tax payers' money is lost
through wasteful use of resources and abuse of authority.

The first encounter I had with waste was when a requisition was made for
furniture to my office. As a senior government officer, I was entitled to
my own colour printer, computer, laptop, ipad, television, document
shredder and water dispenser.

I have never seen such wasteful use of resources in the private sector in
Kenya. In the commercial sector, printers are shared by many offices, as
are water dispensers, shredders and televisions. And laptops are only
issued to persons engaged in field work.

*AIR TIME*

At the end of the month, I received my airtime allowance in the form of
cards from various service providers. The total amount was Sh27,000.

If there is one thing my relatives, friends and subordinates miss from my
service in government it is free airtime. Because try as I did, I couldn't
spend more than Sh7,000 of the allocation. And I got new cards every month.

And though I took only about three to five cups of tea in the office, I
learnt that my secretary was entitled to pick Sh20,000 to Sh40,000 to make
my tea every month.

I was entitled to tea, coffee or hot chocolate as I desired and to a choice
of sugar or honey for my sweetener.

There were no less than ten senior offices to whom this allocation was made
and many of us never got to know how much was picked or spent on our office
accounts.

The fault, I came to learn, was not with the senior officers. The rules of
service set these entitlements and they accrue as a matter of course.

This account is just a tip of the iceberg.

I was also entitled to an official car, armed driver, armed bodyguard and
two Police guards at the house.

Personally I did not think anyone was looking out to harm me so I only took
an official car and an armed driver which I used during working hours. But
I have observed that since the NARC government of 2003, the use of police
security has become increasingly abused.

It is surprising that in the Moi government, with all its excesses, one
never witnessed the almost comical spectacle we are being treated to
everyday on our street where every minister, senator and governor is
running around with several chase cars blaring sirens and a security detail
at the expense of the taxpayer.

Without doubt our Cabinet Secretary in charge of internal security and his
Permanent Secretary need to be accorded some serious security but who wants
to harm the cabinet secretaries in charge of such mundane responsibilities
like fisheries, sports or economic planning?

Sometimes in the process of work, it requires ad hoc committees to be
formed by members of the same department or ministry, or sometimes members
from various ministries, to see through a process or discuss an issue.

When this happens, tea must be served at 10a.m. and at 4p.m. together with
snacks. The snacks will be a samosa, a sausage and a ndazi per person. And
lunch too. Standard lunch order in most of the meetings I attended was
Chinese.

I think it is sad that for the level of service the civil service gives
Kenyans, it would be having Chinese lunches at the tax payers' expense.

*ALLOWANCES*

And when the work is done, the committee members would be paid an allowance
for serving in that committee. This goes anywhere from Sh10,000 to Sh50,000
per person. If it is a gazetted task force, the sum would be a few hundred
thousand shillings. Never mind that these allowances are being paid for
work that everyone was employed to do in the first place, and will be paid
for with a salary at the end of the month.

But to make this bad situation worse, there are kingpins in the accounts
offices of almost every government department that control all payments
with absolute discretion to pay or deny.

These big wigs' names must be put in every payment list for money to be
approved. So for every committee or task force requisitions, these kingpins
earn sitting allowances as a matter of course.

Their names must also appear in every list of per diem payments for people
travelling out of station.

I heard of accountants who make at least Sh500,000 in a dry month through
these illegal payments.

But it is not just the lower cadre bigwigs who exercise these abuses. I
learnt that all senior government Ministers have confidential accounts that
run into millions of shillings from which they are authorised to spend
money without the scrutiny of the Auditor General, or the Controller of
Budget, or Parliament.

These monies are allocated directly from the Treasury and are replenished
as they are spent at the direction of the Minister of Finance.

The worst abuser of this confidential spending was the Office of the Head
of the Civil Service and the Presidency at State House.

I don't know but I have heard that the President's confidential account
often runs into billions of shillings and in the last regime was the cause
of the short and tumultuous tenures of many a Comptroller of State House
under whose office the account is operated.

In this day and age, it is unbelievable that any office in the public
service can spend millions of shillings at its discretion without any
budgetary approvals and with immunity from any form of scrutiny, even from
Parliament.

This picture of abandon, waste and abuse would not be complete without
mentioning two other practices.

One is foreign travel. We have too many Cabinet secretaries, permanent
secretaries and other senior government officers are flying out to attend
meetings that are not critically necessary to the tax payer or that can be
attended by diplomatic mission representatives.

In many instances, the President, Deputy President and Cabinet Secretaries
are accompanied by staff and other people) whose presence and services are
totally irrelevant to the taxpayer who pays for their travel.

There is no guideline in government regarding what is essential travel or
who are essential personnel. In many instances, the work being done during
these travels can be completed by foreign missions and the knowledge being
sought can be learnt from the internet.

*RETREATS*

A similar wasteful practice is the going for retreats to do work that can
be easily done at the office. In these retreats, all manner of staff
members jump into the bus for the free tours. They collect allowances for
these attendances while others, who never left the office, are also on the
allowances list. But let's not go there.

The second practice that I must mention in closing is training at the East
and Southern Africa Management Institute at Arusha, Tanzania. Popularly
known as ESAMI, this institute is a regional training centre owned by ten
member governments to train senior government officers in critical areas of
management.

However, this Institute has become the place where some Permanent
Secretaries sent their sycophants at the ministry and their girlfriends to
while away their time and earn allowances. Many senior officers who qualify
and deserve to go don't get a chance.

Some people are known to have attended many times over while others wait
for a single chance. And when they attend, they are not only paid full
salary but are paid allowances that run into hundreds of thousands of
shillings for being out of station.

These are just some of the wasteful practices that are a culture in Kenya's
civil service which the President should be addressing. I want to believe
that he is not being briefed on the full picture but I remember that he has
served for more than a decade as a Cabinet Minister and five years as a
deputy Prime Minister.
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