Cabinet approves Sh100bn for civil servants’ pay rise

What you need to know:

  • All employees from both the county and national governments are expected to benefit from the review that resulted from a lengthy job evaluation exercise undertaken by the Salaries and Remunerations Commission.
  • Also approved by the cabinet is the hosting of the 56th session of the Asian–African Legal Consultative Organization.

Over 600,000 public servants will benefit from the public service salary review carried out in July this year after the Cabinet approved a budget to fund new job structures.

Ministers sitting on Wednesday approved a new budget of Sh100 billion to implement the proposed salary raises.

The move now gives hopes to the country’s public workers that the newly created structures with new salaries will take effect.

All employees from both the county and national governments are expected to benefit from the review that resulted from a lengthy job evaluation exercise undertaken by the Salaries and Remunerations Commission (SRC).

A statement from State House released on Wednesday also stated that the government will harmonise other public sector salaries and allowances with effect from July 2017.

“There is also allocation for the harmonization of public sector salaries and allowances, civil service pension, house and hardship allowances, recruitment of 10,000 police officers, and recruitment of 5,000 teachers,” read a statement dispatched to newsrooms by State House Spokesman Manoah Esipisu.

The plan will be included in the country’s expanded Sh2.62 trillion budget projected in the coming financial year.

The SRC has come up with a new grading structure in the civil service with 19 categories.

The agency, in a letter to the Head of Public Service Joseph Kinyua dispatched last December, proposed that the new salary structure be implemented in four equal phases beginning July this year.

COURT

In the new structures, the lowest-paid public servants, clustered under job grade B1, will move from earning Sh10,786 to Sh14,442 while the highest-paid will earn between Sh321,101 to Sh576,120.

The new salary scheme places those clustered under grade B2 to earn between Sh11,984 to Sh17,508; B3 between Sh13,356 to Sh20,972; B4 from Sh17,505 to Sh24,883; and B5 from Sh20,288 to Sh28,970.

Further, the lowest-paid workers in grade C will earn Sh26,107 while the highest-paid, clustered under C5, will earn Sh81,148.

The lowest-paid in D1 will earn Sh80,729 while the highest-paid under cluster D5 will earn Sh198,267.

High earners under grade E will get a minimum of Sh134,538 and a maximum of Sh576,120 when they reach the peak of the grade clustered as E4.

“We welcome the approval but we have reservations on the gap between the lowest-paid and the highest-paid. We also want these structures worked on otherwise we will move to court,” said Union of Kenya Civil Servants Secretary General Tom Odege.

CLERICAL OFFICERS

He said clerical officers will now be lumped together with subordinate staff though some have undergone proficiency tests and acquired higher academic qualifications.

In the Wednesday Cabinet meeting the approval of the 2017/2018 budget was the main focus, with revenue collections projected to hit Sh1.704 trillion, compared with Sh1.5 trillion collected last year.

Also approved by the Cabinet is the hosting of the 56th session of the Asian–African Legal Consultative Organization (AALCO).

“Hosting of this year’s session of the AALCO Conference will provide the best opportunity to lobby for the adoption of key resolutions on pertinent challenges unique to Kenya, but which will be further strengthened by collective support the Member States,” State House said in the statement.