Open Office

Government ministries and parastatals are to spend billions of shillings to open up their offices in a new system aimed at fighting corruption.

Head of Public Service Francis Muthaura has directed that all institutions funded by the Exchequer remove interior office partitions and adopt the modern work station model.

The system, where staff in an office sit in an open space and can see one another across the full length, is expected to limit underhand dealings.

The new plan to be implemented over the next two financial years will also affect local authorities, state corporations, and commissions such as the Public Service Commission, the Independent Interim Electoral Commission, and the Teachers Service Commission (TSC).

According to the circular, the new plan will be implemented between the next financial year and the 2011/12 period.

The Nation established that some offices like the Education Ministry’s Jogoo House had already started adopting the new structure.

New government buildings will also be constructed following the new office arrangement.

“All public offices will be remodelled to ensure that open plan spaces and work stations are created in every ministry, state corporation, and local authority,” said Mr Muthaura.

“No exceptions to this rule will be allowed,” he said.

Mr Muthaura was implementing a directive issued by President Mwai Kibaki when he addressed permanent secretaries and accounting officers at an anti-corruption workshop in Nairobi in February.

Mr Muthaura said the system would affect offices occupied by staff below job group S.

In job group S are staff designated as directors. This means that those below S, including senior deputy directors, would have their offices opened up.

Even then, the circular said, offices for staff above job group S would have transparent partitions and glass doors.

The plans will mirror the new TSC Centre building which was completed last year at Upper Hill, Nairobi.

The order was sent to permanent secretaries, chief executive officers of state corporations, and staff with authority to incur expenditure, including district commissioners.

President Kibaki

The directive, whose implementation was expected to start in March, was sent to all ministers and their assistants. Mr Muthaura said President Kibaki had directed that all public services and processes be undertaken openly and in transparent and accountable ways.

The aim is to minimise opportunities for corruption behind closed doors, he said.

The circular, entitled Presidential Directive on Transformation of Government and Public Offices to Open Plan Work Spaces, is sent to all provincial commissioners and the offices of the Deputy Prime Ministers.

According to interior design experts, the new plan will require massive resources, especially in buildings whose design was based on permanent structures.

According to Mr James Komu, an assistant architect at Nairobi’s Alliance Archforms, the cost of restructuring the government offices would be “massive but necessary”.

Offices with permanent interiors, he said, can be brought down easily so long as they are not integral to the stability of buildings.

“We hope the government will be open to include experts from the private sector and those within its system so we have high quality jobs.

“I have no doubt that the jobs is do-able with the help of local experts. Let’s keep corruption at bay,” he said.

He advised against the tendency to use foreign experts in contracts that local personnel could do well with proper checks.

According to Mr Rajan Acharya, who works with Planning Interiors, the new system should be used to transform offices to the modern way of conducting business, like is the case in the private sector.

He praised the new system, saying it would ease the way business is transacted.

“If the physical environment is bad, then employees won’t work well,” he said. “Every organisation wants to improve communication, break down silos, and help people work together better.”

Mr Acharya said a well-designed office is one of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to retain workers and make them more productive.

And while the costs of the new office plans would be high, it is a worthwhile venture, according to the managing director of Space and Function Interiors, Mr Joash Makori.

“The new arrangement will make it difficult for business to be conducted under the table, as has been the case in closed offices,” Mr Makori said.

However, he added that walls that supported loads above them in the offices were unlikely to be demolished.

“If the structures are framed, then it means they do not bear any loads, hence it is easy to bring them down.”

He said most government offices were the type that could be partitioned without any problem.