KIYU KIDOGO

The government will start rewarding hardworking public servants and punishing non performers.

Prime Minister Raila Odinga attributed the low morale and poor service delivery in the civil service to poor remuneration and lack of incentives to motivate hardworking public officers.

“Those who work hard will get kitu kidogo (something small) just to encourage them to continue working even harder,” Mr Odinga said when he received the report detailing how government ministries, departments and state corporations had performed in service delivery this financial year.

President Kibaki and Mr Odinga will jointly release the report on Monday.

Mr Odinga faulted the system where civil servants are promoted solely based on the years they have served and not on their productivity, saying it had encouraged non productivity and outright laziness among public officers.

“In the past, there has been demoralisation in civil service because performance was never considered. Promotions were only based on longevity of service,” the PM regretted.

He added that even when longevity was considered, some well connected civil servants who had served for very short spells earned promotions at the expense of those who had been in the service for much longer periods, creating a breed of disgruntled officers.

“They join the civil service today and tomorrow they are promoted, by-passing those who have been there longer,” Mr Odinga said.