The number of civil servants on permanent and pensionable terms has declined by nearly 19,000 in the first three years of President William Ruto’s government.
Workers covered under the government medical scheme fell to 124,211 employees at the end of the last financial year from 142,885 in June 2022.
The drop of 18,674 employees in three years, including a record 9,769 in the last fiscal year, marks a significant reversal from earlier years when staff numbers were either stable or rising.
The latest staff count, as captured by the State Department for Public Service, is the smallest in six years, going back to the financial year ended June 2019 when civil servants numbered 122,199.
“Medical scheme covers all national government civil servants and officers seconded to county governments. Once beneficiaries retire, they access the scheme until the end of the contract,” the Public Service Department wrote in a budgetary report to the Treasury.
This suggests that the steady decline in recent years reflects a net reduction in staff on permanent and pensionable terms in ministries and departments rather than changes to eligibility rules to the medical scheme.
The Public Service Commission (PSC) has attributed the exits to normal workforce dynamics, including retirements, resignations, dismissals, and deaths. The commission insists that measures are in place to safeguard continuity in service delivery.
“The Public Service Commission, under our human resource planning strategy and working with ministries and State departments, continually addresses succession management gaps to ensure continuity in service delivery,” the PSC told the Business Daily.
“Exits from service occur in numerous ways, including separation through death, retirement, dismissal, or resignation,” it added.
The commission said it recruits young graduates at the entry level every year across various disciplines and promotes officers to higher positions whenever vacancies are declared by ministries and State departments to cushion the civil service from the impact of attrition.
“We are alive to this reality, and that is why every year, we recruit many young graduates at the entry level into the public service,” the PSC said.
PSC data shows the number of interns recruited to ministries, departments, and agencies annually remains volatile and uneven.
In the financial year to June 2025, for example, the number of interns recruited on a one-year contract fell sharply to 3,400 from over 9,000 the previous year, even though it exceeded the reduced target of 2,500.
That represented a 62.64 percent slash from the record 9,100 graduates placed in various ministries, departments and agencies the year before when the target was 8,000.
The commission has pushed back against suggestions that the government is systematically replacing permanent jobs with contracts. It said entry-level jobs in the civil service remain on permanent and pensionable terms, with contract employment used only in specific circumstances.
“Employment in the civil service for entry-level jobs is on a permanent and pensionable basis, and the terms currently remain the same,” it said.
“However, there are certain supernumerary positions that are based on contract, for instance, employment to meet a certain emergent need.”
It cited, as an example, the Covid-19 pandemic period when additional staff were hired on contract to boost vigilance at the country’s entry points. In such cases, the PSC said, temporary manpower needs are met through time-bound contracts rather than permanent appointments.
The shrinking pool of permanent staff comes at a time when public sector hiring has been constrained by tight budgets and a broader push by the Treasury to rein in the wage bill as part of fiscal consolidation efforts.
Treasury data has repeatedly flagged personnel costs as a major driver of recurrent expenditure, limiting the room for development spending.
Expenditure on pay for national government employees, for example, grew to Sh624.69 billion in the last financial year from Sh600.59 billion the year before.
The government has since December 2013 had a moratorium on new employment in the civil service, sparing hiring in essential sectors such as security, education, and health, in a bid to rein in the public wage bill.
State ministries and departments have largely been hiring to replace workers who have exited through retirement, resignation, and dismissals, except for new offices such as that of the Prime Cabinet Secretary, which was created by President Ruto's government.
The situation has been exacerbated by suspension of fresh hiring in the public sector since July to pave the way for planned “audit and cleanse all public payrolls, pension and transfers to the vulnerable with a view to eliminating ghost workers as well as enforce payment of salary scales as approved or recommended by the SRC [Salaries and Remuneration Commission]”.
Aside from exits and hiring freezes, the commission says part of the decline reflects restructuring of the public service to keep pace with technology and evolving organisational needs. The PSC said it continuously reviews organisational structures and staffing levels of ministries, departments, and agencies.
“Where we find positions that are no longer tenable owing to organisational dynamics and changing trends such as the influence of technology, the commission, under its mandate of establishment and abolition of offices, takes the appropriate decision,” it said.
Over the years, several cadres have been abolished or redesigned due to irrelevance, including telephone operators, copy typists, rat catchers, and mosquito catchers, as the government pursues efficiency in service delivery.
