No pay rise for county representatives, says Salaries and Remuneration Commission

Salaries and Remuneration Commission chair Sarah Serem. (Photo:Standard)

By Rawlings Otieno and Isaack Meso

Kenya: The Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) has remained adamant over salaries payable to Members of County Assemblies (MCAs) who are on a go-slow over pay.

The commission has instead accused MCAs and the Speaker’s Forum of failing to avail themselves for the commencement of job re-evaluation.

Commission chair Sarah Serem cautioned that her mandate is to set and review salaries and she can only do so based on a job re-evaluation.

“We have held several meetings with MCAs to seek tangible solutions to the issues the forum has raised. We agreed that we will we will only set new salaries once we have done a job re-evaluation,” said Serem.

State officers

The commission insists the letter and spirit of the Constitution must be adhered to during the implementation of the devolution process to ensure that the resources and the public facilities are moved closer to the people.

She admits the parameters used to set salaries for state officers were arrived at before county governments were established.

Addressing the press yesterday at the SRC offices in Nairobi, Serem said that MCAs should not down their tools but should engage with the commission in finding a lasting solution to the stalemate.

With the latest stand by the SRC, it’s not clear whether the battle between the commission and the MCAs will end soon should the latter also stand their ground.

But following discussions with MCAs, the commission approved facilitation perks taking into consideration the constraints members face in discharging their duties as representatives of wards. The facilitation perks include sitting allowance of Sh3,000 with a maximum of eight sittings per week, which translates to Sh24,000 per month, transport allowance of Sh20,000, airtime of Sh5,000 and responsibility allowance of up to Sh32,000 per month.

The minimum, total remunerative package for an MCA is Sh185,200 per month while the highest earning MCAs who are the Majority and Minority leaders draw a monthly package of more than Sh217,000.

SRC’s stand

“It’s SRC’s stand that success to devolution cannot be measured by how much money is in the pockets of leaders but how much Wanjiku has in her hand and is able to spend and invest,” said Serem. Pay talks between MCAs and the salaries team collapsed prompting the boycott.