Sarah Serem hands over report with new salary structure for public servants

Salaries and Remuneration Commission Chair Sarah Serem. (Photo: David Njaaga/Standard)

Politicians and State officers should brace for salary cuts should a new report by the Salaries and Remuneration Commission be adopted.

Salaries and allowances for MCAs, MPs, senators, governors and the president are among those to be affected by SRC’s recommendations.

The pay reductions will be based on a job evaluation report that categorised each job based on its value.

President Uhuru Kenyatta, in his State of the Nation address, revealed he received an interim report yesterday from the SRC.

The report, among other things, proposed reduction and harmonisation of pay in the public sector.

SRC confirmed it had embarked on a research to review the salaries and benefits of State officers downwards.

Already, it has carried out job evaluation, a process that valued all jobs in the public sector.

The commission has also finalised a study into more than 60 allowances payable to over 700,000 employees.

ALLOWANCES SCRAPPED

A majority of the allowances will be scrapped while others will be merged.

The Standard has authoritatively established that the documents handed over to the President include the new pay structure for all public officers in five sectors.

“Yes, the newly-prepared pay structure for civil servants is among the details handed over to the President,” commission chairperson Sarah Serem said when The Standard contacted her Wednesday.

In the report, the five sectors covered include the civil service, where SRC identified 3,339 jobs and 82 in the Teachers Service Commission (TSC).

It has also evaluated 7,856 jobs in the commercial and strategic State corporations that include the Kenya Postal Authority, Kenya Revenue Authority, KenGen, National Social Security Fund, National Hospital Insurance Fund and Kenya Power.

The commission evaluated and arrived at 9,572 jobs in the service and regulatory State corporations, which include the Central Bank of Kenya and Kenya Tourism Board.

So far, 1,881 jobs have been evaluated in the independent commissions, including the SRC itself.