Ballooning wage bill financed by debt is bad for the country

Two years after President Uhuru Kenyatta promised to tame the spiralling wage bill, evidence on the ground suggests that nothing has been achieved in that regard. The outgoing chairperson of the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC), Sarah Serem, has raised the red flag that while the wage bill stood at Sh627 billion in the 2016/2017 financial year, it is expected rise to Sh650 billion in the 2017/2018 financial year.

In 2015, the Government set out to reduce the huge wage bill by laying off 60,000 civil servants. In 2014, the President and his deputy signalled they would take a 20 per cent pay cut and asked Cabinet and their principal secretaries take a 10 per cent pay cut.