National Assembly Deputy Minority Leader Robert Mbui has opined that slashing budgets for government offices is the only antidote for the wasteful draining of the public purse.
According to Mbui, taming the wage bill is not an effective approach to combat wastage of public money as a large amount is spent with largesse on needless luxuries.
Speaking on Citizen TV’s Daybreak show on Tuesday, he stated that if monies allocated to the respective offices are cut down, availing more funds for development.
“The problem is the Executive’s intention to live large. If you go to our counties you will be shocked by the kind of convoys our governors are running. They are running a fleet of like 10 vehicles and you ask yourself why,” he said.
“The minute we come up with specific budgets that reduce the monies that go to these departments maybe we will get a solution.”
The Kathiani MP added that the number of government employees earning salaries despite securing a job using falsified documents is alarming.
Taming the public wage bill:
Robert Mbui – MP, Kathiani: The kind of wastage happening in government is unfortunate. You find a governor running a fleet of 10 vehicles. Also, everybody in a position of authority ends up recruiting his people, like personal assistants and… pic.twitter.com/YfzaGEU3Zn
— Citizen TV Kenya (@citizentvkenya) April 23, 2024
Mbui however expressed skepticism on whether there will be a crackdown to flash them out saying that any talks with the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) “will just be a talk show”.
“The only thing that will happen is that a few people with fake certificates will leave office,” he said.
During the third edition of the National Wage Bill Conference in Nairobi, President William Ruto raised alarm over the existence of approximately 2,100 individuals who secured jobs with fake academic certificates.
He proposed that those individuals should remit back funds they have acquired while in office.
“We must deal firmly with corruption. There is a lot of wastage and theft in the public space. We can put more resources into development and I think we have now stabilised what we needed to stabilise. We will now confront corruption, head on, going forward,” he said.
The SRC says that 47% of the national resources go to paying salaries and wages. The SRC has committed to reducing the wage bill to 35% by June 20, 2028.
