CS Ndung’u freezes government hiring for one year

National Treasury Cabinet Secretary Njuguna Ndung’u has outlined far-reaching policy measures to tame public sector expenditures including curtailing spending across government.

While presenting the 2024-25 budget highlights, Ndung’u said the government will rationalise all allocations for purchases of motor vehicles.

He said the government will in the financial year beginning July 1 suspend the purchase of furniture, refurbishment and partitioning of government offices for one year.

The CS said the government will also freeze spending on foreign travels and rationalise all training expenses across the government.

The CS said the government was also restricting all training to within government institutions.

The CS said the government will in the next year also stop any employment of staff joining the public service to control runaway recurrent expenditures.

“There will be suspension of all new recruitment in the public sector for the next one year,”

At the same time, the CS announced that during the suspension of employment, the government will conduct an audit and cleanse all public payrolls.

The aim is to eliminate ghost workers as well as enforce payment of salary scales that are approved as recommended by the Salaries and Remuneration Commission.

At the same time, the government will seek to minimise government expenditure by leveraging technology.

Government agencies will also be stopped from investing surplus funds and enforce the requirement of the PFM Act 2012 and PFM Regulations 2015.

The law requires the SAGAs to surrender such funds to the exchequer.