According to Commissioner Sarah Kinyua, the feedback they have received during the two-week process will be considered during the creation of a Public Wage Bill policy/FILE
According to Commissioner Sarah Kinyua, the feedback they have received during the two-week process will be considered during the creation of a Public Wage Bill policy.
“The reason why the commission is touring all the 47 counties is so that we can make the public aware of the wage bill which is over Sh500 billion – very high.”
“We want their views of how this can be controlled so that more money can be channelled towards development of the country rather than just paying wages,” she explained.
Kinyua said the policy would also address the salary disparities that have been raised by public servants and at the same time create a clear job description for each position.
“The wage bill policy will be used as a guide to determine the salary of each position so that for example in a case of engineers in different institutions in the public sector; their salaries should be in a close range as their job descriptions are similar.”
“In the policy we will also indicate the role and duties of each public servant; that way they will be held accountable if there is failure in their departments,” she added.
SRC Chairperson Sarah Serem has previously said the policy will help address all these issues, and therefore check on the spiralling wage bill while also addressing productivity, efficiency and service delivery.
“We need to inject productivity in the public service so that we can grow the economy and therefore increase the revenue base. That way the wage bill as a percentage of total government revenue will come down”.
President Kenyatta recently directed parastatal chiefs to take a 20 percent salary reduction, after Cabinet Secretaries agreed to a 10 percent pay cut to try and manage the unsustainable wage bill that is hampering development projects in the country.
According to Serem, the current public sector wage bill for the current financial year 2013/14 stands at Sh511 billion against the total budget of Sh1.6 trillion.
“Kenya has exceeded its expenditure as we are at 43 percent, yet by international standards it is not supposed to exceed 40 percent,” Serem is on record as saying.
“The huge wage bill not coupled by productivity poses a great threat to a sustainable economy and funding of important projects as outlined in the Vision 2030,” she stated.
President Kenyatta has however assured low cadre civil servants that the salary cuts will not target them, but warned of a reduction of the bloated civil service, which includes a large number ghost workers.
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