Close to 1, 200 Postal Corporation of Kenya (PCK) employees could face the axe and be forced to go to early retirement if recommendations to lay them off in a move to restructure the agency are adopted.
The ICT ministry formed a taskforce to draft a turnaround strategy for Posta Kenya.
And one of the recommendations was to scale down on its staff capacity in a move to ease the state agency’s wage bill which has been pushed up by recurrent expenditure.
The State agency spends a total of 1.7 billion on annual wages for its 3,200 employees, which takes up 65 per cent of its revenue according to Business Daily.
Ms. Mary Basweti, who chaired the PCK taskforce said that the money spent on an annual basis paying salaries is too high and it has bloated Posta’s wage bill to unmanageable levels.
“I think you all know that PCK is bloated. The workforce is too high, much more than they need and they can manage,” said Ms. Basweti.
Insights from a survey of Posta’s workforce show that 40 percent of the employees in the state agency are above 55 years and 20 per cent of them (640 employees) are set to retire next year.
Some of the workers have expressed their will to retire voluntarily.
Another recommendation by the taskforce is that government institutions should use Posta services as a mandatory requirement.
Many government offices have opted to use private courier firms and not the state-owned agency.
In 2015/2016 financial year, Posta recorded a Sh1.5 billion loss though revenues stood at Sh2.67 billion.