Nairobi county workers to get salary hike

Governor Mike Sonko is captured by Biometric Identification device during the launch of electronic Identification cards for staff at the city hall Nairobi. (Standard)

City Hall workers will get 15 to 28 per cent pay increase next month, Governor Mike Sonko announced yesterday.

The governor agreed to implement the 2012 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) that requires Sh110 million to effect.

This comes just three days after the High Court dismissed a petition by the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) that had challenged the implementation of the CBA.

The remuneration authority was agitating for fresh negotiations between the county and its workers so as to come up with a different figure.

“I have no issue with our workers. In fact I am going to implement the CBA come next month following the decision by the courts to dismiss SRC case,” said Sonko.

County workers have had protracted battles with the executive over failure to implement the CBA since 2012, leading to mass protests and downing of tools on several occasions. 

In February, this year, workers allied to the Kenya County Government Workers Union (KCGWU) downed their tools leading to a paralysis in service delivery due to failure by the administration to implement the CBA.

Sonko finally pledged to implement the CBA bringing an end to the strike only for him to make an about turn and blame SRC.

The city boss said that his administration was willing and ready to pay the workers, but its hands were tied by the remuneration commission.

This led to another strike that lasted 12 days.

Kenya County Government Workers Union Secretary General Roba Duba said the CBA had already been registered at the Industrial Court and all that was remaining was implementation.

Meanwhile, City Hall has adopted a Sh11 million biometric registration system meant to weed out ghost workers in the county government.

Sonko launched the registration to register all the 12,000 county workers.

Biometric card

The workers will be issued with a biometric card containing their details and a unique number.

The city boss said ghost workers had led to the county losing money. “We have been losing millions to these ghost workers that have somehow managed to infiltrate all government sectors but once we identify them, we will be presenting them to the DCI and DPP to answer for their crimes,” he said.

The system will also monitor productivity of employees since it will shows whether one has clocked in to work or not.

City Hall is currently spending Sh1.1 billion every month to pay salaries. In 2003, Nairobi City Council had a workforce of 17,000 people but reduced to 10,000 in 2013. However, at inception of county governments in 2013, the national government seconded 5,000 workers to City Hall bringing the total to about 15,000. Sonko has since been able to reduce the workforce to 12,000.