Nairobi City County has suspended all new staff recruitment, casual hiring and internships in a bid to rein in its ballooning wage bill and comply with statutory spending limits. The freeze is contained in the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) Budget Preparation Guidelines for the 2027/2028 to 2029/2030 planning period, issued on July 28, 2026, by County Executive Committee Member for Finance and Economic Planning Ibrahim Nyangoya Auma.
The only exception allowed under the new rules is replacing staff who leave through natural attrition, such as retirement, and even those replacements must be budget-neutral and approved in advance by the County Treasury.
“To ensure the wage bill remains within the medium-term targets, all new recruitment of employees to fill new positions is halted except for replacements due to natural attrition, which must be budget-neutral and approved by the county Treasury,” the circular states.
The measures are anchored in the Public Finance Management Act, 2012, which caps a county’s total wage bill at 35 per cent of its total revenues. Nairobi’s history of bloated departments and revenue shortfalls has repeatedly pushed it close to, or beyond, that threshold. To close loopholes, all salaries and personnel payments must now be processed through the Integrated Personnel Payroll Data (IPPD) system, while any changes to pay or allowances will require guidance from the Salaries and Remuneration Commission.
County departments will also have to submit three-year staffing projections and justify every position they intend to fund through 2029/2030, as Nairobi shifts from incremental budgeting to Zero Based Budgeting, which requires every programme to be justified from scratch rather than carried over from previous years.
The hiring freeze comes as the county grapples with a cash crunch that has already delayed workers’ July 2026 salaries. Acting County Secretary Godfrey Akumali confirmed the delay in a circular, attributing it to hold-ups in the approval and uploading of the county budget.
“Management sincerely regrets the inconvenience and challenges that this situation may cause and wishes to assure all staff that the matter is receiving the highest priority,” Akumali said, urging employees to remain patient as the county works to release the funds.
County sector heads have until August 20 to submit draft budget proposals to the Treasury, with public hearings expected in September. Nairobi says it will prioritise finishing stalled development projects over launching new ones as it works to stretch its limited resources further.
