Fears over scrapping of jobs in public service salary review

As Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) assures public servants that the on-going job evaluation has nothing to do with job cuts, fears are rife that some jobs might be scrapped altogether.

Already, the commission while insisting that the process should not be misconstrued to mean job cuts, has revealed that the exercise will be completed in April, next year.

The valuation covers about 680,000 public officers, spread over 1,000 job positions in the Service and Regulatory and Commercial and Strategic State Corporations Sector.

The commission is committed to ensuring the public service is able to competitively attract employees with relevant skills for the job market, whose salaries the economy can sustain, according to SRC Commissioner Sellestine Kiuluku.

The exercise, she added, is meant to determine worth of jobs based on a systematic assessment of complexity of job content and requirements and establish a grading structure for the entire public service.

ELIGIBLE FOR REVIEW

The remuneration for each grade shall be determined by the pay structure developed through a salary system emanating from a salary benchmarking exercise.

Employees that will be found to have been undervalued on completion of the exercise that started in March would be eligible for a review of their salaries though the commission was non-committal on whether the latter deserve compensation for the years they were underpaid.

But, for those whose jobs are overvalued or there is no change in the job value, their salaries will not be subjected to any adjustments.

“This grading structure will see some positions scrapped or merged. If some salaries are increased, those whose pay cannot be reduced due to labour laws that discourage such, a move, might be under pressure to leave,” said Mr Japheth Ongoma, a civil servant.

He insists that this exercise is meant to manage the soaring public wage bill as much as it would promote fair employment and remuneration practices.

Before the inception of SRC, he pointed out, the public sector remuneration and benefits were arrived at through ad hoc committees and commissions resulting to huge disparities in the payments that affected morale among some staff.

Ms Kiuluku said the affected employees also include those working in county governments, research institutions and universities, constitutional commissions and independent offices.

The commissioner, who is also the team leader for the Service and Regulatory State Corporations, spoke on Friday during a meeting with CEOs of state corporations at the Intercontinental Hotel, Nairobi.

She observed that the country’s public sector productivity is currently low compared to other countries and emphasised on the importance of investing in improving performance.

Ms Kiuluku, who was accompanied by the Commissioner in-charge of the Strategic and Commercial State Corporations Anne Owuor, added that employees from various government ministries are also being trained about job evaluation to build capacity for future engagements.

Ms Owuor downplayed claims that job evaluation would lead to sacking of workers and urged those still in doubt to support the consulting firms to fast-track the process.

“Job evaluation will assist in negotiations for better terms based on the real value of the jobs. It is not an exercise in vain. It promotes fairness at the place of work and enhances productivity,” she said.

There were concerns that the exercise is not all inclusive. Joseph Magoma, a teacher, claims that SRC is biased and would not touch on the executive and politicians who take home a fortune monthly in salaries and allowances.