County bosses call for increased pensions and PAs’ remunerations
The newly elected Council of Governors (COG) has slammed the County Public Service Boards on what she termed as “standardising salaries meant for their personal assistants (PAs) to peanuts” and “insignificant” pensions allocated to them.
Led by Kirinyaga county boss Anne Waiguru, CoG claimed that the “petty” pay to their secretaries does not reflect their job description.
“It is an insult to have a PA earn Sh38,000. They are paid much better in Parliament,” observed Embu governor Cecily Mbarire.
The CoG members believe respective players can work to turn around thing bearing in mind the difficulties in current economy.
“We urge County Public Service Boards to entrench the role in law and affix a pay grade to it,” Kilifi counterpart Gideon Mung’aro reiterated.
The PA position has no stipulated requirements and is awarded by the holder of the office to their close confidantes and loyalists.
The council vowed to address the two issues as the roles assigned by respective governors vary across all the 47 counties.
In response to the claims, the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) chairperson Lyn Mengich asked CoG to follow the right channels in ensuring their pleas are listened to.
“We urge the Council of Governors to outline a job description, which the government will evaluate and assign a standard salary for the position,” stated Mengich.
Sentiments echoed by the Public Service Commission chairperson Mwaniki Muchiri who seem to be in agreement with Mengich.
“County Public Service Boards should know where and how to cap qualification for this position,” Muchiri noted.
The freshly sworn-in governors have hinted that they want to resurrect the pension demands of their predecessors, maintaining the deadlock between CoG and SRC.
The county executives want to reconsider their present pension benefits package, which now pays them 31 per cent of their basic salary earned during their employment, or Sh10.3 million and Sh6.94 million respectively.
This was supported by Mary Mwiti, the CoG Secretariat Chief Executive who called for a consensus in court documents.
“The recommendation made for governors to enjoy gratuity whilst their counterparts at the national level enjoy a pension with defined benefits occasions discrimination, inequity and unfairness,” stated Mwiti.
A contributory pension or a gratuity are the two forms of benefits that have been developed for state personnel serving in counties as a result of the case. According to SRC, CoG and it reached an agreement in January 2020 to establish a pension plan for state employees in county governments, including as governors and their deputies.
The two have been in a stalemate since June as a result of CoG launching a lawsuit claiming a monthly pension and drawing comparisons to other state authorities, like the President and the Deputy President, who are each entitled to a lifetime monthly pay-out.
The SRC has opposed the benefits for the county executives, claiming that they are expensive and run the risk of altering the state officers’ retirement compensation structures.
