Public Servants will receive a salary increment of between seven and 10 percent in the next two years, effective July 1, 2023.
Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) chairperson Lyn Mengich said that this increment covers the entire public service, including state officers and is inclusive of the existing notch increase, which averages three percent annually.
“Those who will benefit from the increment include Executive State Officers, Parliament State Officers, Judiciary State Officers, County State Officers, Teaching Service, Civil Service, Uniformed and Discipline Forces and other Public Officers,” said Mengich.
Addressing the media in Nairobi on Wednesday, Mengich said that SRC set a four year review cycle for remuneration and benefits in the public service, with the first cycle running for the period 2013/14 to 2016/17 and the second cycle between years 2017/18 and 2020/21.
“The third remuneration and benefits review cycle covers the financial years 2021/22 to 2024/25,” explained Mengich.
She added that due to the economic conditions occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic, SRC in consultation with the National Treasury, froze the salary structures for the first two years of the third cycle, running from the years 2021/22 to 2022/23.
“In 2022, the economy sustained a growth momentum that started in 2021 after the recovery from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, hence a review for the third and fourth years of the third cycle,” said Mengich.
She explained that the review cushions public servants against loss of purchasing power arising from erosion in the real value of remuneration and benefits to the extent of affordability and fiscal sustainability.
The commission chair explained that they approached the National Treasury for funding to implement pay increments and were advised to work with Sh. 21.7 billion against the Sh. 340 billion that they had requested.
“The government’s wage bill, which has now crossed the Sh.1 trillion mark when compared to the ratio of the revenue collected, has declined from 51.5 percent in the financial year 2017/18 to 43.5 percent in the financial year 2022/23, and it is projected to further decline to 40.5 percent in the financial year 2023/24 against a target of 35 percent as stipulated in the Public Finance Management Regulations 2015,” said Mengich.
She further highlighted that in 2021 they will commence a process of streamlining allowances to achieve transparency, accountability, equity and fairness in remuneration and to ensure fiscal sustainability of the wage bill in the public service.
“In phase one, which was implemented in the last financial year, three allowances ceased to be payable and they include plenary seating allowance and ministerial allowance, resulting in an annual cost savings of Sh. 1.7 billion and the taxable car allowance resulting in cost savings of Sh. 9.7 billion over a period of four years,” said Mengich.
By Joseph Ng’ang’a
