SRC’s allowances slash will help curb wastage
The Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) should be commended for striving to streamline wrongs that have been taken for granted for a long time. One of the thorny issues is the allowances paid to government employees for doing the very work which they were hired—and are paid—for. What has emerged is an increasingly lucrative per diem industry in the civil service.
While facilitating government employees to discharge their duties by paying them a little money is okay, it should not be abused. It is a shame that some workers in the government and its agencies are more interested in allowances than in carrying out their tasks.
The SRC has targeted four types of allowances for elimination. Although the workers stand to lose the billions of shillings, it will be a major saving for the government. These are retreat and sitting allowances for committee members, as well as task force and non-practices allowances, arguing that they amount to double payment. The slashing of the allowances will, according to SRC chairperson Lyn Mengich, save about Sh100 billion in taxpayers’ funds every year.
Civil servants enjoy 247 allowances, up from only 31 in 1999, accounting for 48 per cent of the total wage bill. The SRC now wants allowances capped at 40 per cent of gross pay.
Retreat allowance, for instance, is paid to those who participate in special assignments to review and produce policy documents. That is, of course, part of the core business for which they earn monthly salaries.
The SRC also abolished the Sh5,000 per sitting allowances for plenary sessions in the National Assembly and the Senate. Logically, committee work is part of the core business of MPs, besides debate in the chamber. It does not make sense to pay them a sitting allowance to prepare what they later debate.
As the government struggles with financial challenges, there is an urgent need to curb wastage by backing initiatives such as the SRC’s rationalisation of public sector remuneration.
