SRC Defends Salary Increase for Gov’t Officials

The Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) has justified its decision to enact a compensation increase for State and public servants from July 1.

SRC Chairperson Lyn Mengich stated that the commission was only executing the third of a four-part cycle of agreed-upon compensation increases for public employees.

Speaking on Saturday, Ms Mengich said that although raises were frozen during the Covid-19 time, they have since restarted.

“The commission set a four-year review cycle (for increments) and we are now in the third review cycle…there was a salary structure freeze due to Covid-19… the commission has reviewed the Salaries as required,” she said.

Read: President Ruto Rejects 14% Salary Increment for Senior Gov’t Officials

She acknowledged the problem with the rising cost of living, stating that the total compensation for all public officials is currently at Ksh.998 billion and is on track to reach Ksh.1 trillion.

“The wage bill is informed by growth in numbers of employees ..the country employs about one million public officers,” Mengich said.

“We will also evaluate the job requirements and their relative worth to determine the desired pay for each public servant.”

This comes a day after President William Ruto rejected a proposed salary increment for senior government officials.

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The head of state asked the SRC to hold off the proposed 14% pay increase until it develops an internationally recognised system reducing the gap between civil servants’ salaries.

“I have told SRC that there is an internationally accepted formula called compression formula. Until they come back to me and say they have met that formula, our salary increment will wait,” he said.

He, however, okayed a salary review for other public servants including teachers and police officers.

Treasury had allocated Ksh22.6 billion toward salary increments, with 40% going to teachers (Ksh9.1 billion), 30% going to the civil service (Ksh6.7 billion), 27% going to national and county governments and 3% going to state officers (Ksh574 million).

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