Hope as NPSC Announces Salary Review for Police
Members of the National Police Service are set for a pay rise beginning this month following the conclusion of a job evaluation process by the National police service commission (NPSC).
Commission’s chairperson Eliud Kinuthia said the review was arrived at following a consensus from a process undertaken jointly with the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC).
“We have participated fully with the SRC to ensure this is successful,” said Kinuthia Wednesday in a press briefing.
The third remuneration review cycle affects both the uniformed officers and civilians within the service. Kinuthia said the process is in line with the review cycle of the civil servants’ pay as provided for by the Constitution.
He was, however, quick to clarify that this has no relations with a report to be released by the David Maraga-led Taskforce.
“There is a clear delineation of mandate between a constitutional commission and a Taskforce,” he said. “It would have happened whether or not the the Taskforce was in place or not, the Presidential Taskforce is in fact had higher mandate.”
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The first circular on police review was released in 2019 following the third phase of increment with the second one being issued in 2020 for the final phase of the previous administration.
The move comes as a big relief to the officers who have never had a had any increment for the last two years.
Out of Sh27.1 billion released by the Treasury for pay increment, police gets Sh3.6 billion. Some Sh2.84 billion will be released in the 2023-24 financial year while Sh1.3 billion being set for the next financial year.
Inspector General of police Japhet Koome said the money will reflect in the pay slips by Friday. Koome had told his juniors the increase will not be effected as announced by the Salaries Remuneration Commission.
Instead he told his officers to be patient until a task force formed to review police affairs completes its work.
“Please note that, my attention has been draw to information appearing in the media regarding new salaries for members of the National Police Service. Consequently, you are asked to inform all members of the National Police Service to be patient for the next few weeks with a view to waiting for release of the Presidential Taskforce on reforms in the National Police Service report/recommendations to the appointing authority,” he said in an internal memo.
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He said once this has been done, all will be informed on the new salaries and allowances by this office.
The terms of reference of the retired Chief Justice David Maraga taskforce are to review the human capital management and development policies with a view of examining and reviewing standards and practices in recruitment, deployment, transfers, training, career progression, performance-based and competitive promotions, reward, exit, and post-exit management.
President William Ruto established the task force through a gazette notice on December 21, 2022, to identify and recommend legal, policy, administrative, institutional, and operational reforms in the
National Police Service and the Kenya Prisons Service for effective service delivery.
Maraga’s team is also expected to review and recommend improving the units’ terms and services and other reforms.
SRC chair Lyn Mengich said civil servants will get a salary increase of between seven and 10 percent over a two-year period, inclusive of the existing notch increase, which averages three percent annually.
Mengich confirmed that the National Treasury had allocated Sh27.1 billion for the Financial Year 2023/24.
The pay rise will be backdated to July 1.
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“The salary structures for unionizable employees to be undertaken through the Collective Bargaining Negotiations (CBN) process,” she said.
Those set to benefit from the allocation are teachers, doctors, nurses, police, military, and officers working under the Executive.
Teachers got the lion’s share of the allocation of Sh9.5 billion which represents 44.2 percent of the total budget, followed by officers in the uniformed and disciplined services who got Sh4.5 billion (20.9%).
Others are state officers in county governments who got Sh4 billion (18.8%), civil service Sh1.8 billion (8.5%), other public officers Sh745 million (3.4%), county state officers Sh408 million (1.9%), Judiciary state officers (1.4%), Executive state offices Sh126 million (0.6%), and parliament state officers Sh78 million (0.4%).
The commission scrapped several perks which include retreat allowances, sitting, and taskforce allowances for Institutional and Internal Committees.
Further, SRC said Daily Subsistence Allowance (DSA) for local travel had been standardized across the country for the respective grades.
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