En una ráfaga de dos minutos, el Lobo selló el marcador a su favor. El equipo mendocino venía de tres victorias consecutivas y, tras la derrota, podría ser superado en la cima del torneo
Gimnasia de La Plata dio el golpe ante Godoy Cruz en Mendoza
Desde la Empresa Provincial de Transporte de Mendoza confirmaron que ya está en marcha la fabricación de 14 unidades cero kilómetro; cuestan casi la mitad de lo que Mestre pagará por los coches exportados. Negaron que funcionarios cordobeses hayan pedido cotización en esa provincia.
Trolebuses: Crece la polémica por la compra de Mestre en Rusia
El equipo de Merlo, anteúltimo de la tabla, recibirá al conjunto de Floresta con el objetivo de volver a la senda del triunfo luego de tres derrotas consecutivas.
Racing quiere escaparse de la racha negativa ante All Boys
Así lo dijo hoy el fiscal que investiga la causa de la financiera. Se realizaron allanamientos, los cuales fueron dispuestos con el fin de determinar si había vinculación con el dinero que manejaba CBI, que, según el fiscal, “no contaba con autorización del Banco Central (BCRA” para operar como una entidad financiera.
Senestrari dijo que son siete los imputados en la causa CBI
El resultado oficial de la autopsia realizada al multipremiado actor dio como resultado que su muerte se debió a una mezcla de heroina, cocaína, benzodiazepinas y anfetaminas.
El actor Philip Seymour Hoffman murió por un cóctel de drogas
Anders Borg, Swedish Minister for Finance. PICTURE: JOHN MULALA/STANDARD
“We have liberal citizens in Europe who will be reluctant to have their taxes used to finance donor projects in countries that have human rights abuses,” said Anders Borg, the Swedish Minister for Finance.
He spoke yesterday at the Swedish Embassy in Nairobi, describing the Uganda Government’s action as a mistake.
Borg, a self-confessed heterosexual, said the Swedish Government would be reviewing its financial ties with the Kampala so as to minimise what he described as “reputation risks”.
Borg has served as the Swedish Minister of Finance since 2006. In 2011, Financial Times ranked him the best European Finance Minister. He was on a five-day visit in East Africa, which ended in Nairobi yesterday against a background of strong economic development in East Africa and growing interest from Swedish industry.
Sweden’s visit to Kenya comes at a time when trade delegations from the US, UK and Germany have already made their presentations, looking for opportunities in the country’s nascent mining, oil and energy sectors.
During the two-day visit to Kenya, Borg met Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich, Central Bank of Kenya Governor Njuguna Ndung’u and representatives of international financial institutions and the private sector.
Available figures indicate that Swedish exports to Kenya were valued at Sh6.3 billion in 2012, while imports from Kenya stood at Sh4.9 billion.
Kenya imports telecommunications equipment, paper, machinery, manufactured products, medical equipment and vehicles. It exports coffee, cut flowers, fruits and vegetables.
By Jackson Okoth, The Standard
Anti-gay laws threaten EAC donor relations
This was been worsened by theagitation for higher pay by trade unions. These moves have increased the public sector wage bill to Sh458 billion in 2012/2013 financial year. It is expected to reach Sh521 billion this financial year.
Prior to this, the country’s public wage had been contained, following the unpopular structural adjustment programmes that retrenched public employees. But after former president Mwai Kibaki office in 2002, government employees started going up, especially after 2004.
During the five years to 2013, the wage bill doubled, growing from Sh240.5 billion in 2008/09 financial year to Sh458 billion in 2012/2013.
This was on the back of each side of the political divide pushing to have their own occupying some office. The fight also saw the cabinet reach 40 ministries, some of them departments hived off from ministries as the leaders clamoured to create room for their cronies.
“In the 1990’s, the central government wage bill as a percentage of GDP was about nine per cent,” said a January report by the Kenya Institute of Public Policy Research and Analysis (Kippra). “This figure dropped to seven per cent following the implementation of the Public Sector Reform Programme in the late 1990s up to 2001.” Treasury expects salaries paid to Government employees to reach Sh521 billion this financial year. This is three times more than what the public wage was in 2004 — at Sh166.29 billion, according to data by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics.
The public sector employee count stands at over 655,000, up from what was seen as a manageable figure of about 190,000 in 2002. The government as an employer accounts for 19 per cent of formal sector employment in Kenya.
During former President Kibaki’s first years in office, there were half-hearted attempts to tame the wage bill. These entailed voluntary early retirements – a sort of continuation of the SAPs – that had aimed to reduce public employees by about 21,000. This would have brought the employee count to about 170,000.
This however never happened. Political patronage in public sector employment took centre stage. “The gains from the (public sector) reforms including reduction in the wage bill were however, short-lived as a result of inadequate ownership,” said the report. “From 2004, the public wage bill trend started increasing due to the expansion of the public service. It is estimated that the wage bill has steadily risen to over Sh500 billion in year 2013/14, which is 12.5 per cent of the GDP.”
According to a new report by the Transition Authority (TA), in addition to power sharing, employee unions push for increased pay for their members also share the blame in driving up the wage bill to unsustainable levels.
Pay hike
The teachers unions have with vigour pushed for more pay as well as the honouring of promises made during the Moi era.
While the Teachers Service Commission may not have yielded to all their demands, some level of compromise has always been reached, increasing the wage bill. Teachers account for 40 per cent of the 650,000 government employees.
“Trade unions play a crucial role in pushing up the public sector wage bill. The Kenya National Union of Teachers and the University Academic Staff Union have been instrumental in negotiating for wage increases for their members and their hard line stance has on several occasions, forced the government to review their members’ salaries upwards,” said TA in a position paper.
“The Kenya Medical Practitioners Pharmacists and Dentists Union has also been very instrumental in pushing for salary increments for its members.
By Macharia Kamau, The Standard
How Kibaki-Odinga’s coalition fueled the bloated wage bill
Kinuthia Wamwangi, the chairman of the Transition Authority
A key government agency says hard political decisions have to be made to arrest the runaway wage bill that is expected to surpass Sh500 billion this financial year (2013/2014).
The Transition Authority (TA) in a position paper on the ‘rising public service wage bill’ has also recommended radical interventions to address the growing wage bill puzzle.
Thought not explicit, the Authority could easily be taken to mean the firing of tens of thousands of government employees who are likely to be rendered redundant.
“Going forward there is need for a political decision to address the issue of duplication between provincial administration and county governments,” says TA.
The wage bill deadlock has also drawn the attention of key global institutions including the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
With an estimated 700,000 workers, the Civil Service has come under fire for what is considered a drain on public resources that would otherwise have been spent on development projects.
With its hands tight, the Jubilee government which rose to power on the platform of better life for all Kenyans is now considering going against its pre-election pledges of protecting existing jobs and creating one million additional jobs every year.
Controversy
President Uhuru Kenyatta’s administration has indicated that an estimated 100,000 public sector jobs could be on the chopping board in an attempt to contain the spiraling wage bill, which currently stands at Sh458 billion per annum.
Whether sacrificing low cadres jobs in the public service is the panacea to the growing wage bill still remains to be seen.
Kenya’s public wage bill has more than doubled in the last three years, raising alarm to the extent that the country may soon be left with no money for development.
The wage bill in money terms almost doubled from Sh241 billion in 2008/9 to Sh458 billion in 2012/13.
As a percentage of government revenue, the wage bill has also increased from 48 per cent in 2011/12 to 50.4 per cent in 2012/13.
These trends indicate that the public service wage bill has reached unsustainable levels.
According to the report, the government’s fiscal position has been deteriorating with increase in deficit financing.
Since the Government can only finance from taxes or borrowing (domestic and external), the large demands of financing government spending on public service wages has inevitably led to increase in deficit financing and in domestic borrowing.
The rise in public wage bill means that such increases have over the past five years contributed to widening the fiscal deficit and increased domestic borrowing.
Consequently, domestic debt has doubled over the past five years from Sh518.5 billion to Sh1.05 trillion.
Such large increases in interest payments on public debt have further implied reduced government discretionary spending in subsequent years as increased resources go into servicing debt.
Although Kenya’s economy has experienced continued recovery from the economic downturn encountered in 2008 when the country recorded a low GDP growth rate of 1.5 per cent, down from 7.0 per cent in 2007, the wage bill is expanding at a higher rate.
The expansion rate is way above the desired international standard of not more than 38 per cent recommended for countries in Sub Sahara Africa.
On the other hand, GDP growth picked up in 2009, reaching 4.4 per cent in 2011, with growth projected at over 5.6 per cent for 2012.
For instance, the total wage bill for the entire public service, including military and local authorities, in absolute terms, increased from Sh240.5 billion in 2008 to Sh457.5 billion in 2012.
As a percentage of GDP, the wage bill was 13.3 percent in 2012 and 11.4 percent in 2008/9.
The wage bill to GDP ratio is an indicator of the public service personnel cost share of the total economy. The central government wage bill, as percentage of total recurrent revenue and grants shot to 48.2 per cent in 2008 and 47 per cent in 2012.
The expansion rate has had other major implications on the job market. Until 2009, the average annual earnings were higher in the private sector than in the public sector.
The Transition Authority has recommended that the recruitment programme in the public sector be restricted to core sectors, which have direct bearing to service delivery to the people.
In addition, the authority notes that recruitment in administrative services should be frozen until existing staff are deployed.
The authority has also proposed a complete overhaul of the sitting allowance for public officers who attend board meetings in parastatals saying such benefits are subject to abuse.
TA underscored the need for a consolidated wage policy to address disparities in pay regimes across the public service and harmonization of salaries, remunerations and benefits to close the disparities existing between defunct local Authority staff and national staff.
According to the authority salaries and allowances for public officers both in national and county governments should also be re-evaluated.
“Effective control of the wage bill will require rationalisation of Ministries/Departments and Agencies by undertaking functional and staffing review to identify duplicating and overlapping mandates, roles and responsibilities and identify those that can be merged, abolished, transferred, retained or contracted,” says TA.
The authority notes that issues of integrity, impunity, corruptions are key sources of wastage of public resources where people cease every opportunity to earn erroneous payments by exploiting weak loopholes in our policies.
“Treasury must develop mechanisms of monitoring compliance with austerity measure,” says TA. According to TA civil servants who wish to undertake early retirement and out-placement should be awarded attractive package of incentives.
TA also recommends the determination of the optimal staffing levels for both the national and county government. According to TA wages and benefits paid to workers should be linked with the standards of living.
Other recommendations include carrying out a job evaluation exercise in entire public sector to establish the relative worth of positions in all public organisations and assign appropriate remunerations and adjust current inequalities and vetting of all Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBAs) by the ministry of labour prior to registration an their implementation.
According to TA recruitment practices that are inconsistent with the needs of the public service and absorptive capacity of the national economy should be reviewed.
By James Anyanzwa, The Standard
Kenya: Civil servants brace for huge job losses
The retail chain said terror attacks at the Westgate Shopping Mall last year affected retail business across the region.
“Insecurity in Kenya and Uganda continued to impact negatively on retail business following terrorist threats and actions. Patronage of shopping malls reduced through the second half of 2013,” said Uchumi Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Ciano, in a statement.
In September 21, last year, armed men from the Al Qaeda-linked Al Shabaab militia attacked Nairobi’s Westgate Shopping Mall in Westlands, killing about 67 people in the three-day siege.
While Uchumi did not have an outlet in the mall, the company’s sales took a hit. The heightened tensions saw Kenyans shun shopping malls in a period often characterised by heavy shopping ahead of the festive season.
“Inflation was also at an upward trend in the second quarter of the 2013/2014 financial year rocketing from a low of 3.2 per cent in 2012 to a high of 7.15 per cent in December 2013.”
Uchumi expects to complete a rights issue in the second half of its 2014 financial year to fund planned expansions.
By Frankline Sunday, The Standard
Uchumi earnings drop due to rising insecurity
The ministers, during a meeting in Kinshasa Wednesday, agreed to Kenya’s request for an additional time to put their sugar sector in order.
The Comesa safeguards expired yesterday. The Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture, Livestock and Cooperatives is however opposed to the extension of the Comesa safeguards.
The oversight committee argued that mismanagement of Kenya’s sugar industry rather than increased competition is what has brought the sector down to its knees.
“I’m against this extension. It is of no use and value because there is a lot of mismanagement in the sugar sector,” Committee Chairperson Adan Mohamed Noor told The Standard yesterday.
The committee noted that illegal trading in the commodity has ‘killed’ the sugar sector, impoverished farmers, denied the Government revenue, paralysing operations of sugar millers.
“This sector is being killed by illegal sugar imports and smuggling. The Government need to be serious.” The 29-member committee has described smuggling and illegal importation of cheap sugar into the country as a time bomb that has already detonated. The local sugar industry is in turmoil due to irregular licensing of sugar millers, smuggling of cheap sugar imports and rampant cane theft that has hit the Western Kenya sugar-growing belt.
“As a committee, we are concerned and worried about the manner in which sugar importation is being effected. These imports come in despite the presence of key institutions along the borders to check on illegal importations,” said Noor who is also the MP for Mandera North.
“How these imports find their way into the country is a question Kenyans are asking. We want to know who are the main beneficiaries of these illegal imports.” The expiry of Comesa safeguards could have opened up the local sugar industry to competition from Comesa trading bloc.
Kenya sought Comesa intervention of safeguard mechanism in 2003 to protect its sugar industry from threats of imported sugar.
But there have often been fears that the country is running out of time to fully meet the conditions set out by Comesa in 2007. The privatisation of the local sugar industry is part of the reforms that need to be undertaken before the expiry of the Comesa safeguard measures in February 2014.
The companies slated for sale include Chemilil, Muhoroni, Miwani, Nzoia and Sony Sugar. Other reforms include change in cane pricing formula from one based on cane weight to one based on sucrose content of the cane delivered and improvement in the road network.
By James Anyanzwa, The Standard
Reprieve for Kenya as Comesa extends sugar safeguards for a year
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