Officers serving in the disciplined services, teachers, civil servants and county government workers are the prime beneficiaries of the latest salaries review by the Salaries and Remunerations Commission (SRC) backdated to July 2023.
Out of the Sh21.6billion allocated for salary reviews in the current financial year, 83.9 per cent amounting to Sh18.2billion has been allocated to the above categories of workers.
This translates to a 7 per cent to 10 per cent increase in civil Servants salaries.
Speaking during a press conference yesterday, SRC chairperson Lyn Mengich said that the salary increases will be backdated to July 1, 2023.
In the new review, the Teachers Service Commission received the lion’s share of the Sh21.7billion that the National Treasury allocated to SRC for FY 2023/24.
Teachers got 44 per cent of the budget followed by the security sector at 20.9 per cent and county governments were allocated 18.8 per cent.
Another 8.5 per cent was set aside for the civil service, 4.3 per cent to state officers and 3.4 per cent allocated to other public officers.
SRC commenced the streamlining of allowances in 2021 to ensure affordability and fiscal sustainability of the wage bill in the public service.
Implemented during the last Financial Year, SRC scraped three allowances; Plenary Sitting Allowances and Ministerial Allowance and the Taxable Car Allowance that resulted in a total cost saving of Sh1.7billion and Sh9.7billion respectively.
In phase two, the commission has also scrapped Retreat Allowances, Sitting Allowances for Institutional Internal Committees, Taskforce Allowances for Institutional Internal Committees and Daily Subsistence Allowances.
The commission said there will be an upward adjustment of remuneration in the only gross salaries of public service institution that is below the 50th percentile will be reviewed.
“The average increase is 7 to 10 per cent over a two-year period, inclusive of the existing notch increase, which averages 3 per cent annually. The review covers the entire public service within the context of affordability and fiscal sustainability.” Mengich noted.
The increase is aimed at achieving harmonised equity for everyone due to the current increase of cost of living.
“The salary structures for unionisable employees to be undertaken through the Collective Bargaining Negotiations (CBN) process. Where the salary structures are frozen, the notch increase will continue as budgeted up to the maximum salary point.” She added.
SRC also aims at seeking a structure to adjust the remuneration and benefits of the public servants that are below 50 per cent of average current gross market positioning through reviews of legal compliance in order to achieve fairness.
The sectors below the average current gross market are inclusive of state officers averaging at 45 per cent, civil service in both national and county governments and county governments at 39 per cent, teaching service at 36 per cent and public universities at 49 per cent.
“Upward adjustment of remuneration and benefits structures that are below the target market position of the 50th percentile to ensure attraction and retention of requisite skills, to the extent of affordability and fiscal sustainability.” Mengich observed.
The Cabinet Secretary of Treasury, Njunguna Ndung’u who was present in company of his Principal Secretary Chris Kiptoo stated that the bottom Up economy is an agenda that seeks to transform the structure that has been there for the last 60 years.
On the contrary of the salary increase many civil servants had expected their salaries to undergo an increase during this year’s Labor day celebrations but they faced a backdrop of delay with no increase at all.
The crisis saw March salaries paid as late as mid-April with lawmakers at the national level receiving their pay on April 5 and 6.
Kiptoo said that they are privileged to have collected a total of 4.42 trillion shillings from tax collection by the end of this fiscal year in the Kenya Kwanza government and finished paying all the debts.
