The Kikuyu and Kalenjin communities continue to hold the lion’s share of state jobs because government agencies do not heed the advisories of the Public Service Commission.
In the wake of glaring ethnic disparities in state jobs, the PSC has many times advised government agencies to take deliberate steps to accommodate all the country’s 45 ethnic groups.
But a new report by the commission reveals balance is yet to be achieved amid revelations the two communities that have held the presidency since independence are grossly overrepresented.
Some 29 state institutions had one ethnic community constituting over 50 per cent of the workforce. The PSC says its review established state agencies have continued to dish out jobs non-competitively, especially those of advisers.
State corporations had the largest chunk of non-competitive recruitments at 686, followed by ministries at 675 and 90 at public universities.
It was established that 149 officers were appointed non-competitively as personal staff in public offices. The Executive office of the President hired 133 people non-competitively, nine at the Commission on Revenue Allocation while seven were appointed as advisers to Cabinet secretaries.
Public institutions are required to adhere to the principle of fair competition and merit in appointments and promotions.
“This is save for where appointment is made to address the underrepresentation of gender, an ethnic community, or persons with disability,” the report reads.
It also emerged that even the new jobs Kenya Kwanza administration created in the period did not consider the prevailing disparities.
As of December 2024, there were 47,543 Kikuyus and 40,820 Kalenjins in the public service, being 20 per cent and 17.6 per cent respectively.
Their numbers have, however, reduced compared to 2023 when it was established there were 51,994 Kikuyus and 43,983 Kalenjins in the public service.
On the flipside, the number of Kambas, the PSC report shows, has gone down and are now underrepresented in the public service.
They join the Luyha, Mijikenda, Maasai, and Turkana who were declared underrepresented last year and have maintained the rating. It was established there were 19,971 Kambas in the public service as of December 2024 against their population of 4.6 million.
The report shows there were 28,069 Luhyas against their population of 6.8 million as per the 2019 national population census.
Luos, who were 27,954 in the year under review, were deemed as overrepresented. Their numbers reduced from the 29,594 reported last year.
The PSC compliance report for 2023-24 shows 39 of the 43 communities represented in the service had normal representation.
Some 4.4 per cent of the ethnic communities were not represented in the public service at all. From the findings, PSC has directed all public institutions to develop affirmative action programmes to redress ethnic representation gaps in their institutions by June 30, 2025.
“The institutions which are yet to attain the proportionate representation of all ethnic groups to implement the prescribed affi rmative action program proposed for their institution by the commission,” PSC said.
The report further details that Kikuyus and Kalenjins also dominated the 8,447 new appointments that Kenya Kwanza made in the period to December 2024.
It has emerged Kalenjins got a chunk of the new jobs at 1,732 followed by the Kikuyus at 1,469 while Luos and Luhyas were 969 and 956.
Also, among the big winners were Kisii (573), Kamba (559), Meru (440), Kenyan Somali (262), Maasai (210), Mijikenda (169), and Embu (110).
“New appointments may be used to redress any identified representation gaps and therefore accelerate the achievement of proportionate representation,” PSC said.
