Kenya Power, the once profitable public-private monolithic electricity distributor has taken to a new path – that of downsizing its huge workforce by 1,962 which translates to 20 percent.
The objective is to ‘manage the staff costs, which in the recent past have increased to unsustainable levels…’ said KPLC management in a board paper.
Curiously, KPLC says that the ‘payroll cost has been growing at an average rate of 12 percent per year compared to 5.4 percent revenue growth. While the company raised Sh133.18 bn in 2020, for instance, staff costs rose to Sh17.61 from Sh16.09 in 2019.
KPLC wishes to spend Sh1.9 bn on redundancy costs but open up any of the rest of the 7,869 staff to voluntary exit.
There has been a loud silence by the staff union on the matter signaling potential consensus on the matter.
The cause of the layoffs, while being blamed on inefficiencies, is mostly fueled by massive corruption at the 9,843 strong workforce institution.
Regrettably, not a single person has been successfully prosecuted for corruption at KPLC.
