President Uhuru Kenyatta has approved a shake-up of public institutions that will see the number of parastatals reduced from 262 to 187, following the recommendations of a Presidential Task Force on Parastatal Reforms. The taskforce was led by the President’s Constitutional and Legal Affairs Adviser, Mr Abdikadir Mohammed and Mr Isaac Awuondo, the CEO of Commercial Bank of Africa.

If fully instituted the reforms would mean that senior civil servants heading at least 75 key parastatals could either be rendered jobless or redeployed.

14 PARASTATALS TO GO… AND THEIR CHIEFS

According to the report by the taskforce, 42 parastatals are going to be dissolved, twenty eight others will be merged and another twenty two will have their roles transferred to other institutions.

Among some of the top parastatals’ chiefs who will be affected by the restructuring, which is expected to occur in three months, include: the CEO of Brand Kenya, Mary Kimonye; the CEO of the Kenya Tourism Board Mureithi Ndegwa; Paul Muthaura, the CEO of the Capital Markets Authority (CMA); Edward Odundo, the CEO of the Retirement Benefits Authority (RBA); and Sammy Makove, the CEO of the Insurance Regulatory Authority (IRA).

NEW MERGES

Under the new recommendations by the Presidential Task Force on Parastatals Reform, the Kenya Industrial Property Institute, the Anti-Counterfeit Agency and the Kenya Copyright Board will be merged into one parastatal to become the Kenya Intellectual and Industrial Property Corporation.

The Kenya Forest Service, the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) and the Kenya Water Towers Agency will also be consolidated to form the Kenya Wildlife and Forest Service. And the Brand Kenya Board, the Export Promotion Council and KenInvest will now be part of the Kenya Investment Corporation (KIC).

The proposed reforms have been received with criticism as the fear of job losses takes centre stage. The state corporations currently employ a total of 119,689 workers with an annual bill of over sh131.2 billion.