Address bloated workforce to save money
The county government has just released its fiscal Strategy paper for 2014-15.
It forecasts total recurrent spending at Sh19.1 billion; 30 per cent of the total budget.
This leaves the county with only Sh8.1 billion to fund its development programmes.
The larger part of the money will go towards salaries for the county’s 11,000 employees.
This spells doom for Nairobi residents who have been looking to the government to improve and expand the infrastructure in line with the promises Governor Evans Kidero made when he was elected last year and more recently, during his state-of-the-county address.
The Governor outlined a raft of development projects for the coming months. He promised to expand roads and build more schools, especially secondaries to improve the transition rates.
The county has also been very vocal on plans to rehabilitate hospitals and clinics and do away with slums to pave way for modern highrise buildings.
All this will require enormous resources, certainly more than the county is allocating for development.
It is a fact that the county has a bloated work force that costs city residents almost Sh1 billion a month in wages yet there is very little, if any, service delivery to show for it.
This is one area Dr Kidero and his government must address in order to save resources for other priority areas.
He must also crack down on loopholes that create opportunities for corruption.
That way, the county will be able to save resources that would otherwise have been stolen by employees.
With better management of available resources, the county need not suspend development projects as happened during the last financial year.
Going forward, every effort must be made to ensure the bulk of resources at the county’s disposal is channelled towards development.