Why SRC could still award pay raise to Ruto, top officials

The Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) has defended its decision to review upwards the salaries of senior State officers and civil servants even as criticism over the timing of the proposal arises.

The commission chairperson Lyn Mengich explained that the commission reviews salaries every four years, and that they had frozen pay reviews for the last two years due to the pandemic.

The clarification came a day after President William Ruto rejected proposed pay increases for senior State officers—which would cost Sh1.3 billion annually—as had been proposed by the commission. The President had Friday ordered the SRC to freeze the proposed salary review until it establishes whether the reviews were in line with the best practices on income inequalities.

“I have instructed the Salaries and Remuneration Committee to give us international best practices as we need to reduce the gap between the people paid the least and those paid the most. It is not right for the people at the top to earn 100 times more than those at the bottom,” President Ruto said on Friday.

While agreeing with SRC’s proposition to review the salaries of teachers, health and security personnel, the President disagreed with the proposal to increase pay for senior State officials.

The commission yesterday termed Ruto’s objection to the salary reviews as “his views”.

“The President has only given us his views. We cannot say that State officers can reject pay proposal because SRC has proposed. We set pay for a role, not an individual. An individual may disagree but that does not change the pay for the role,” Ms Mengich said.

This means that the commission could still effect the new pay proposal for both top government officials and  civil servants.

Should the commission’s proposal sail through, the beneficiaries of the proposed review include State officers and other public officers both at the national and county governments.

The President, his deputy, CSs, PSs, judges, magistrates, kadhis, MPs, Senators, MCAs, governors, DPP, Auditor General, and Controller of Budgets fall under the category of State officers.

“We are currently in the process of public participation for the review of the remuneration of public servants…Two years ago, we said there will be a review in two years. It would not be fair for public officers to say we cannot review their pay. It is in the SRC Act,” Ms Mengich said.

The Mengich-led commission had proposed an upward review of salaries from between seven and nine per cent for both State officers and public officers. SRC argues that the salaries for State officers have not been reviewed comprehensively for 10 years.

With the government currently employing about one million Kenyans, the proposals by the commission is bound to increase the wage bill.

The proposals are coming at a time when Kenyans are hard pressed economically. In its defense, however, SRC said in 2021, it undertook a labour market salary survey locally and nationally to determine the positioning of gross remuneration structure for public institutions and form the development of appropriate remuneration structures that facilitate attraction and retention.

The survey, SRC said, revealed that gross salaries of public service institutions were at different levels of gross market positioning.

Salaries of State officers, civil servants in both national and county governments, teachers, and public universities staff were below the target while those of State corporations and other public officers such as the secretariat staff in commissions and independent offices were way above the target, the survey showed.

“Where salaries are above the 50th percentile, the salary will be retained,” Ms Mengich said, adding that SRC will implement job evaluation grading results to align to the relative worth of jobs to attain the principle of equal pay for work of equal value.

Further, the commission aims to ensure that the minimum basic salary is compliant with the current minimum wage. This undertaking together with the progressive harmonisation of salaries would cost an additional Sh340 billion.

“To achieve the target market positioning and progressive harmonisation would cost Sh340 billion. However, considering the current economic reality, and with regard to fiscal sustainability and in consultation with the National Treasury, the budget allocated for the salary review is Sh22.6 billion per year. This represents only two per cent of the total wage bill,” she explained.

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