NAIROBI, August 14 – The government on Thursday announced pay hikes of between 109 and 160 percent for officers in the junior and middle cadres of the Civil Service.
Public Service Minister Dalmas Otieno, who made the announcement, said that the government had provided Sh3.5 billion in the current financial year for the rise to be backdated to July 2008.
Otieno emphasised: “The distribution of this salary adjustment takes into account disparities within job groups and the need to motivate staff in the lower and middle cadres.”
“The increase takes into account the government’s ability to pay within the current budgetary constraints.”
Those entitled to the new perks are officers in Job Groups ‘A’ to ‘L’.
In the new packages, the lowest paid civil servants who include cleaners and messengers will earn a basic monthly salary of Sh7,829 up from Sh3,310. This is in addition to a house allowance of Sh3,000 and a medical allowance of Sh375.
Newly recruited graduates in job group ‘J’ will consequently earn a basic salary of Sh21,304 up from Sh15,088 per month. They will be entitled to a house allowance of Sh6,000 and a medical allowance of Sh990 per month.
Those in job group L will now get a basic salary of Sh30,472 up from Sh25,491. This is besides Sh20,000 as house allowance and Sh1,500 for medical.
Besides the increments, the Minister also revealed that the salary scales had been shortened from 10-15 salary points per scale, to 4-6 salary points.
“This is in order to enhance the annual increments to make them more meaningful and to provide for horizontal equity within the respective job groups,” Otieno reiterated.
The implementation is the final salary award in the Civil Service within the harmonisation framework, whose first phase was implemented in July 2005.
Last year, Finance Minister Amos Kimunya provided Sh2 billion for salary awards due to budgetary constraints and required that the increase be spread over a period of three years. This was however a drop in the ocean for the 115,000 civil servants.
Failure by the government to raise the minimum wage during this year’s Labour Day celebrations caused public uproar. President Mwai Kibaki told the crowd gathered at the Uhuru Park grounds that the economy was not doing well at the time and the government could therefore not offer any increments.
Though the Labour Minister John Munyes had announced that a joint committee would be looking at the possibility of increments, no communication has since been given to that effect.
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