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Kenyans can’t believe Moses Kuria wants wage bill slashed

By HILARY KIMUYU December 13th, 2017 2 min read

Controversial legislator Moses Kuria has sparked an online debate with a proposal on reforms in the civil service to reverse the country’s ever growing wage bill.

The Gatundu South MP’s concerns come just a week after outgoing Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) chairperson Sarah Serem said the country’s wage bill is projected to hit Sh650 billion by the end of next year.

Mr Kuria on Wednesday said containing the ballooning recurrent expenditure should be the only dialogue the country should be thinking of having right now.

“We have to take the bulls by the horns. Over the next 5 years we have no option but to reform our civil service and drastically reduce the wage bill to a maximum of 7% of the GDP. That is the dialogue we need!,” Kuria wrote on Facebook.

REDUCE EXPENDITURE

A majority of Facebook users, who responded to the Kuria’s post, were in agreement that the country needs to rethink how to reduce its expenditure.

Johnson Anyasi responded by saying, “Mheshimiwa, Half of the recurrent expenditure is consumed by the political class. Devolution: Governors, Senators, Dysfunctional Women Reps, MP’s and MCA’s. Don’t forget the Presidency was reported as the highest spending in the 2016/2017 financial year.”

“Moses Kuria, this is very true. If this discussion is done appropriately, this country will take a great step forward. But all stakeholders must be honest during the discussion,” Wilson Mwitumi wrote.

Another concerned Netizen, Anwar Saddat, said: “The problem is not public wage bill but corruption. Those civil servants employed by the government contribute taxes back to the economy. What is killing Kenya is cases where individuals connected to those in power import metal containers worth millions, that the government have no use for, and are left wasting away in Mombasa. If you can stop such wastage and theft of public funds, then it will be easy to grow the economy and create more jobs.”

I wish we maintained the 8 provinces we had and convert it to 8 counties. We would be having only 8 governors instead of 47. Dividing the country into 47 counties was a big big mistake, we didn’t need all this counties. My opinion,” commented one Jonteh Wa J-Kustomz.