Teachers say no to Cabinet proposal

Teachers on Thursday rejected a Cabinet proposal to have their pay increase spread to 25 months. The teachers said the Cabinet had offered nothing new and declared that their countrywide strike was still on.

“This is not a new proposal. At the end of the day, the salaries will still be effected in three years and we have opposed that strongly,” said Mr Lawrence Majali in an interview.

He is the secretary general of the Kenya National Union of Teachers.

Pay rise demands

Mr Majali said Knut had ceded enough ground from a one-year implementation deal to two years. “What the Government is offering is three instalments, only put in a different language,” he said.

Earlier, the Cabinet appeared to have sealed the fate of the teachers saying the Government could not immediately meet their new pay demands. Instead, the Cabinet said the teachers would actually be paid the more than Sh19.2 billion they were demanding in 25 months.

This, the ministers said, would be done once the economy stabilised. Consequently, the Government appealed to the teachers to call off their nationwide strike, which enters its fifth day today and return to work.

The Cabinet decision was reached on Thursday at State House in Nairobi after a meeting chaired by President Kibaki.

In a dispatch to media houses on Thursday evening, the Presidential Press Unit said the Government could not increase taxes on other Kenyans to enable a lump sum payment.

Teachers have been demanding Sh19.2 billion effective this month for one year. But, the Government offered Sh17.3 billion payable in three years, from July 1.

On Thursday, the Government said it had taken six years for civil servants to attain their current salary scales. “The Government will therefore harmonise the teachers salaries to be in line with other public servants within a period of 25 months, i.e. between July 2009 and July 2011,” read the PPS dispatch.

Knut chairman George Wesonga likened the new deal to “playing music to a goat!” He said: “The Government should get serious with the teachers of the country and give them what they want.”

The union’s treasurer, Mr Fred Ontere, said if the salaries were paid in July this year and next year, then they would be “ready to call off the nationwide strike.”

At least Sh19.2 billion is required if the demands of the teachers are to be met. The Cabinet appealed to the teachers to give dialogue a chance to break the deadlock.