Ethnicization of Civil service in Kenya

Looking At 50 Years, Scholars Find It Pays To Have President From Your Tribe

A tribal vote is in some respects a smart policy decision, because it will confer on you advantages. This finding suggests that in Africa we need to find creative ways to get minority groups to the table.

Clever people can be great, but terrible too when they go poking their noses in dark corners and coming out with some uncomfortable truth. There are these chaps we wrote about at www.mgafrica.com (“Sometimes, voting along tribal lines can be the ‘smartest’ thing for an African voter to do - study says”), who studied ethnicity — we shall call it tribalism to help dramatization — and how it works in Africa.

They found some surprising things. They looked at data on primary education and infant mortality in 18 countries since the independence decade, using Demographic and Health Surveys. Nothing unusual there. However, next they compared how those education and health indicators shifted with the changes in the tribe of the presidents in the 18 countries over the past 50 years.

In summary they found that having your tribesman or woman as president accelerated the health and education outcomes of your community by an equivalent of three to four years ahead of the national average. In other words, tribe can be a development steroid. The research findings should be of particular interest to Kenya, because it found that in some of the 18 countries such as Congo-Brazzaville, Ethiopia, Gabon and Kenya, the effects of ethnic favoritism on education are particularly large, even more than four years.

In other countries, the effects were felt in health. Thus in Burkina Faso, Chad and my own Uganda, children born when their co-ethnic leader was in power benefited considerably with the probability of dying during their first year of life reducing sharply.

And this is why I say smart people can be dangerous, because why study something like that and come up with a result we all don’t like? And after poring over data (government data moreover) of 50 years, it is impossible to ignore or dismiss the findings.

Smart Policy Decision

Some of the conclusions from this, therefore, have to be different from the ones we have held about tribalism. For starters, it means that when people vote for a president from their ethnic group. It is not all “blind tribalism” and narrow cultural solidarity.

No, a tribal vote is in some respects a smart policy decision, because it will confer on you advantages. But then it gets complicated. Because it is not only your tribe paying taxes, as president you cannot be content with their vote or take care of them only. You do that, it won’t be long before you have a conflict that breaks the country. So if there are direct measurable benefits in having your tribes mate in power, in a country with many tribes who all pay taxes, the correct and beneficial thing is to have them all sitting around the dinner around.

Secondly, the findings of the study are actually a strong point for rotational leadership. If having your man in State House accelerates your community’s educational and health progress by three to four years, then in diverse countries every tribe deserves to get a chance to have the presidency and boost its fortunes.

Rotational Leadership

So here, for the first time, you could argue that we have the most down-to-earth argument for presidential term limits and rotational leadership. You can have term limits, but it is also important that if the last president was from the south, the next one should be from the north. Also, this finding suggests that in Africa we need to find creative ways to get minority groups to the table and not just leave it to the generosity of a big tribe president to throw them a bone.

Thus for Kenya, while the 2010 Constitution was far-reaching, perhaps the country needs to tinker further with political reform, and look at proportional representation, and for the political parties to go toward Namibia-style party lists for elections. That way, if a party wins, the Ogiek who is on the list will come to Parliament while under the present system, he might not.

Finally, the study found that these benefits do not take the usual three to four years to be felt. The president’s tribe begins to feel the benefit of his rule immediately. Not surprising.

Even international donors and the UN, usually want to be “seen” by the president to be doing good things. Building a new school on the road to his village home, and vaccinating children in his district are the quickest way to do that.

Revealed: How ethnic groups share public jobs

Public Service Commission chairperson Margaret Kobia. Prof Kobia said the report will give the Public Service Commission baseline guidelines that will help it to reduce the gaps to ensure that the public service has a national face.

• Although there are about six million people from the community — who form 17 per cent of Kenya’s population according to the 2009 census figures — the study said the community was over-represented by 5.5 per cent.
• Prof Kobia attributed the trend to tribalism and historical reasons, but said the government had put in place measures to ensure the public service reflects the face of Kenya.
• Prof Kobia said the report will give the Public Service Commission baseline guidelines that will help it to reduce the gaps to ensure that the public service has a national face.
• By Samwel Born Maina
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The Civil Service is dominated by four communities who take up more than half of all the jobs, a new government report has revealed. Members of the Kikuyu community lead the pack, followed by their counterparts from the Kalenjin, Luhya and Kamba communities. Together, they control 58 per cent of the workforce in government ministries, departments and agencies. However, the report, dated December 2014, says that new appointments in the last financial year were done in a manner that ensured ethnic balance. The report was the product of a survey conducted in 168 agencies with a workforce of 94,286.

Three Tribes Take Half of All Public Sector Jobs

“Ethnicity is normally one of the criteria we use when hiring. We want to ensure that all communities are fairly represented,” Prof Margaret Kobia, the chairperson of the Public Service Commission, told Nation in a telephone interview. Prof Kobia said the report will give the Public Service Commission baseline guidelines that will help it to reduce the gaps to ensure that the public service has a national face. “We can see the gains we have made in reducing the gap in ethnic representation,” she said.

The report is the first informed by research and will be useful to scholars, public servants and Kenyans who want to understand the civil service. It reveals that members of the Kikuyu community had the highest number of employees at 21,567, accounting for 22.9 per cent of the total workforce. Although there are about six million people from the community — who form 17 per cent of Kenya’s population according to the 2009 census figures — the study said the community was over-represented by 5.5 per cent. Members of the Kalenjin community, who have 12,082 jobs in the surveyed departments, were also over-represented by 1.57 per cent. They form 12.8 per cent of total government workforce.

The Luhya community was third with 11,487 civil servants, representing 12.2 per cent of the workforce. Although it was one of the communities with the highest number of workers in government, it was, however, under-represented by 1.78 per cent based on its members’ proportion to the national population, which stands at 14 per cent. The report ranked the Kamba community fourth, with 1,0321 employees. This translated to an over-representation of 0.76 per cent.

Tribalism And Historical Reasons

“Taking the size of Kenya’s ethnic groups in the national population into account, the Kikuyu, Kalenjin, Kisii and Embu have a fairly large representation relative to their population,” it says.
Prof Kobia attributed the trend to tribalism and historical reasons, but said the government had put in place measures to ensure the public service reflects the face of Kenya. In the 2013/2014 financial year, 2,211 people were employed in various government agencies. Of these, 1,424 were male while 787 were female.

Whereas this met the one-third gender requirement, individuals from the Kalenjin community secured 454 government jobs followed by those from the Kikuyu community who got 412, 404 from the Luhya and 381 from the Luo communities. The Kamba and Kisii communities had more than 100 people hired with 161 and 145 respectively.

Education, according to the report, was one of the factors that continue to lock out minorities from civil service jobs. “It should be noted that employment is a function of, among other factors, skill, knowledge and literacy, which, in progression towards compliance, will slow down equal representation among the minorities unless they improve their low literacy skills,” the report said.

According to the data, the Somali community has the highest deficit in the public service at 4.4 per cent followed by the Turkana at 2.2 per cent and the Luhya at 1.8 per cent. There are 1,751 government workers of Somali origin in the civil service and 384 from the Turkana community. Others who are under-represented include the Meru with a workforce of 3,815 which translated to an under-representation of 0.29 per cent.

Mijikenda

The Mijikenda community has a workforce of 5,823 while the Swahili community has only 448 employees in various government agencies. According to the findings, five communities are not represented at all while three have less than 20 employees. Those not represented are Galla with a population of 8,146, Konso (1,758), Galjeel (7,553), Leysan (5,941) and Kenyan Americans (2,422).

The El Molo community, which is at risk of extinction, has five employees. The community has a total of 2,844 members nationally. The Borana Community has a workforce of 973 out of the 161,399 people. Only one Kenyan European out of the 5,166 people from the community is in the civil service.

According to the 2009 census, the Kikuyu community is the most populous with 6.62 million people while the Luhya are second with 5.33 million followed by the Kalenjin with 4.3 million.

In 2011, a report by the National Cohesion and Integration Commission on ethnicity in the public service revealed that five communities — Kikuyu, Kalenjin, Luhya, Kamba and Luo — commanded about 70 per cent of the total workforce. The Kikuyu community led with 22.3 per cent while Kalenjin followed with 16.7 per cent, Luhya 11.3 per cent and Kamba 9.7 per cent.

Further study quiz.

Prof. Kobia attributes the trends to tribalism and historical reasons.  Use one example of each to illustrate:

1.      (i)     How tribalism has contributed to this situation; and              (2.5 Marks)

2.      (ii)    One historical factor that has contributed to this situation.    (2.5 Marks)

3.       

a.       (b)         (i)               What threat, if any, does this situation pose to the long-term stability of                        Kenya’s social structure?                                                        (2 Marks)

b.      (iii)                         Suggest two strategies that you think would be helpful in achieving a more equitable sharing of public jobs in Kenya.                                  (8 Marks).

The report done by the public service commission is just but a glimpse of how tribalism has deepened its roots in Kenya contributing to the domination of most public offices by four tribes. This can be attributed to the occupation of leadership positions by individuals who have a ‘tribal’ mindset. There is also allocation of positions on a tribal basis in order to satisfy political affiliation; the idea that coming from the same tribe is a leverage to acquire positions and lastly as a manipulation scheme.

The occupation of leadership positions in government institutions with a ‘tribal’ mindset instills in them certain powers and privileges. An example of this power is the ability to make autonomous decisions, appointments and the control over hiring procedures. Through this, they take the opportunity to appoint staff members from their own tribes and in control of hiring procedures they ensure it’s done on a tribal basis. These individuals have now occupied a new status position. They have power to influence their community. With this, their community members look up to them to enhance development. The pressure falls on them to carry out favors by offering job positions.

According to the constitution, the president has power to appoint cabinet secretaries and other public officers. However, in this case they delegate this to senior offices in departments. It has been a trend in Kenya for the ruling government party and tribe to ensure that their tribe and the one supporting it occupy as many positions in the government as possible. For instance let’s use the four dominating tribes that is Kikuyu, Kamba, Luhya, and Kalenjin and to some extent the Luo tribe. The first was a Kikuyu, his president was a Luo. The second president was Kalenjin and had a Kikuyu vice president. The third was a Kikuyu and had a Kamba and Luhya vice presidents, currently President Kenyatta is a Kikuyu with his deputy being a Kalenjin. This has been greatly reflected in the report by Public Service Commission. Kikuyu occupying 22.3%, Kalenjin 15.3%,Luhya 11.3% and Kamba 9.7% of the total workforce in the civil service. The allocation of public service becomes related to political affiliation in the fact that at some point each of these tribes in end occupied the highest ruling positions in the country.

In Kenya, one of the nations highly polarized by negative ethnicity in Africa. Competition for the authoritative allocation of state resources is done on a tribal basis. When individuals go for job interviews, they resolve to using manipulation as a measure to get the job. The fact that we belong to the same tribe or the interviewer comes from the same tribe as the head of department becomes a leverage to get the job position. When this happens, a rampant and large scar in various regions in the country results to the outlandish statistics as per the public commission report.

The coming of the missionaries in the 19^th century was characterized by introduction formal education. This formal education system was intended to benefit the local people especially in making them conscious of their lives and environment. However, not all communities embraced this new education system, some resisted regarding it as being a political tool of control by Europeans. Only a few communities welcomed them. The communities then comprised of single tribes and the population was homogeneous. The communities that embraced formal education differed greatly with those that resisted. The tribes that embraced formal education got to know their human rights, the essence to fight for freedom from the colonial masters. However, the resisting tribes were still held back by their cultural traditions and did not get the opportunity to make literate individuals from its population.

The embracing tribes having learnt the power and skills in leadership championed the withdrawal of the imperial rule and took over the leadership positions previously held by the white colonial masters. The resisting tribes lacked elites who would have represented them in leadership positions left by the outgoing colonialists. Therefore, all leadership positions were taken over by the elites from the tribes that had embraced formal education. Generally, these positions have been hitherto assumed by the privileged communities, as an original right, to belong to their ethnic groups and hence tribalism is still the dominant ideology in government.

Perhaps, the worst negative psychological legacy of colonialism was the imposition of artificial parochial ethnic hatred. The practice of oppressive divide and rule policy in governance, economic exploitation, racial discrimination and social humiliation only served to entrench these misplaced feelings and stereotypes of other communities. Communities were not able to associate together. The assumption that other communities should rule was created. For instance, the Kikuyu community developed the impression that Luo were unclean since they were not circumcised and were unreliable while the Luhya as a community were schemers. In a nutshell, tribalism was created in the minds of Kenyans.

The indirect rule administration by the British colonialists later turned out to the divide and rule strategy which polarized the various ethnic groups in Kenya. The political groups were thereafter distributed into the ‘distinct ethnic unions’ that is the Kikuyu Central Association (KCA), The Kamba formed the Ukambani Members Association (UMA), while the Luhya formed the Luhya Union (LU). The Luo formed the Young Kavirondo Association (YKA), and the Kalenjin formed the Kalenjin Political Alliance (KPA). As a result of the foregoing ethnic trends, a situation prevailed in this country, where a common national political voice was not possible to attain.