Kenya has saved Sh1.4bn after state officers' pay review- SRC

The country has saved Sh1.4 billion over the last one year following the review of salaries and allowances paid to state officers.

The Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) said the salaries and allowances paid to state officers has reduced from Sh12.8 billion annually to Sh11.4 billion following the review.

But this constitutes only three per cent of the total annual wage bill for public officers, which stood at Sh458 billion in the last financial year, SRC vice chairperson Daniel Ogutu told a media breakfast at the Laico Regency Hotel, Nairobi Thursday.

He announced that the SRC would now embark on the second phase of reviewing salaries and allowances paid to other public officers in an effort to reduce the wage bill which takes up half of the total revenue generated every year.

“We are liaising with Treasury to give us funds to carry out a scientific evaluation for the rest of the public officers and we hope that at the end of it, we will manage to increase their salaries,” Mr Ogutu revealed.

JOB EVALUATION

To conduct the job evaluation, SRC will require between Sh200 million and Sh250 million, Mr Ogutu stated.

The exercise will take at least two and a half years.

SRC chairperson Sarah Serem faulted MPs for drafting a bill that seeks to amend Article 260 of the constitution which categorises them as State Officers.

The bill aims at removing the offices of MPs, County Assembly members and judges and magistrates from the list of designated state officers whose salaries are set by the SRC.

The bill which is headed for the second reading in Parliament has been drafted by the departmental committee on Justice and Legal Affairs chaired by Ainabkoi MP Samuel Chepkong’a.

If passed, Kenyans will be forced to spend an additional Sh7 billion every year on salaries for MPs, Judges, Magistrates and County Assembly representatives.

“The question we are all asking ourselves is, if MPs manage to run away from the category of State Officers, who do they become? Do they become public officers?”

She warned that the amendment, if passed, would negatively affect other sections of the constitution which touch on state officers.

Ms Serem also denied suggestions from the audience that her Commission had been overruled by Parliament on the salaries of MPs, explaining that the new salary structure it gazetted early this year remained intact.

“Nothing was altered from the salary structure which we gazetted, the only thing we granted them was the grant for cars because the cost analysis showed us that the country stood to spend more if we were to accord them government transport like other public officers,” she explained.