Salary Hike, Work Till 7 pm: Aisha Jumwa's Five Promises In 100 Days

Cabinet Secretary of Public Service, Gender and Affirmative Action Aisha Jumwa is planning to streamline her docket in 100 days, less than a week after being sworn into office.

She stated on Tuesday, November 1 that she planned to increase the salaries of all government servants by the end of January 2023.

"Monday, being my first day in office, I committed to expanding the reach of the Huduma Kenya Service Delivery Programme; and the Ministry of Public Service, Gender and Affirmative Action will undertake the following in the next 100 days," she wrote.

Public Service CS Aisha Jumwa with staff at the Huduma Centre in Nairobi GPO. /TWITTER.AISHA JUMWA

1. Jumwa will launch Extended Working hours in 18 Huduma Centres nationally including Nairobi GPO which will offer highly sought services from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm. In line with this, the Ministry has commenced extending working hours on a shift basis for the Huduma Contact Centre from 7 am to 9 pm.
2. She will undertake 100 Huduma Mashinani outreaches across the country to provide services closer to the ordinary Kenyan.
3. She will launch the model Sub-County Huduma Centre in partnership with the National Government Constituencies Development Fund (NG-CDF) in preparation to establish Huduma Centres across various Sub-Counties.
4. As part of the directive by President William Ruto, she will launch a tree planting program through Huduma Centre Adopt a ‘County-Forest’ with the target to plant 500 million trees in the next five years.
5. She will also launch an improved training program on Huduma Kenya Standards and Customer Service Excellence to capacitate staff with the required skills to serve customers better.

“Civil servants are a demoralised lot, and we don’t want to see them suffering. They cannot cope with the high cost of living occasioned by runaway inflation.

"As Kenya Kwanza government, we want to revamp their morale by increasing their salaries as soon as possible," she explained on Monday, October 31.

She added that a committee was put in place to address the strategy President William Ruto's government would explore in increasing the pay.

The CS added that many of the workers struggled with meeting basic needs such as school fees and rent with their current pay, likening it to her own experiences where she struggled growing up in a poverty-ridden childhood.

“I am a leader and a mother too. I know a majority of public servants are grappling to pay school fees for their children, pay rent and fend for their families.

"It’s a sad state of affairs but I have come to solve the problem so that they can live a dignified life," she added.

Jumwa's new position sees her take charge of the Public Service Commission (PSC), arguably the biggest employer in Kenya.