Serem warns civil servants to expect cuts in allowances

Civil servants have been told to expect a cut in allowances when a new pay policy comes into force next year.

In some instances, allowances are double the salaries of public servants, which cannot be sustained, says Salaries and Remuneration Commission chief Sarah Serem.

The announcement could put the commission at loggerheads with trade unions representing public officers.

Mrs Serem said the policy would also contain guidelines on how to conduct pay negotiations using collective bargain agreements.

Unions use the agreements to push employers, including the government and constitutional commissions, for pay.

The Kenya National Union of Teachers is for example, asking for a pay rise of up to 300 per cent in basic remuneration.

Much of the earnings of public officers, including MPs, is disguised as allowances while the actual pay is kept low.

While this favours the top cadre who can set the number of meetings and trips to qualify for the allowances, the system disadvantages middle level and junior officers who are not in control of their own work ticket.

Public officers, for example earn sitting allowance for meetings to deliberate on matters they are responsible for.

This is in addition to responsibility, house, hardship and transport allowances. Those in senior ranks even draw allowances for domestic workers, guards, drivers and mileage, among others.

It is these and others that Mrs Serem’s commission wants regulated for the 655,300 public officers.

Mrs Serem said they were in the process of developing a remuneration and benefits policy that will be the legal framework for determining salaries and allowances.

She said that many people preferred working in the public service due to impressive allowances that are more than the employees’ basic salaries yet productivity for some of the staff was below par.

“For some the allowances cost beyond 100 per cent of their basic salaries. Allowances should be a smaller percentage of the basic salary because compensation for work is the salary and not the allowances,” said Mrs Serem.

The policy would also set the stage for well-thought-out demands for higher pay by unions as opposed to the current situation where they come up with demands that the economy cannot sustain.

The policy, she said, would manage bargaining agreements and reduce industrial unrest that have become common as workers push for a high pay.

“Our concerted efforts to set and regulate salaries will be in vain without such a policy that we expect to launch early next year,” Mrs Serem said yesterday during a corporate networking breakfast meeting at Laico Regency Hotel in Nairobi.

She noted that determination of appropriate wage bill was faulty as there was no single unit focusing on developing principles and policies for pay commensurate with performance.

COUNTY GOVERNMENTS

The SRC chairperson said the commission was facing problems managing the wage bill because of many positions created, particularly by the county governments, outside the established structures of employment.

“There is a host of supportive staff at the counties. Whereas we recognise the position of a governor, he has gone ahead to employ several advisers and other staff that have increased the wage bill,” Mrs Serem said.

She explained that besides employees recruited by the county governments, there are those employed by the Transition Authority, those seconded from the National Government and others inherited from the defunct local authorities.

The numbers employed in the public service, she said, were unnecessary, stretching the wage bill far worse than even some developed countries, and affecting the economy.

But with the ongoing rationalisation in the public service, the issue of a bloated work force would be addressed.

She said it was wrong for more than half of a country’s revenue to be spent on salaries and allowances for less than one per cent of its population.

“The wage bill has gone far beyond our economic growth. We are a consuming economy and we cannot develop on borrowed money,” she said.