County assemblies strike set to derail key local services

Members of Kenya’s 47 county assemblies are set to begin a national strike Thursday morning in a move expected to paralyse the legislative functions of the devolved governments, including the passing of crucial bills.

The decision to begin industrial action was taken during Wednesday’s meeting of county assembly speakers in Nairobi with the officials citing failure by authorities to address concerns over their pay.

“Some county assemblies adjourned today (Wednesday). The rest of the 2,000 members will come on board from tomorrow (Thursday) and stay put until the uncertainty surrounding our pay is addressed,” said Nuhu Nassir Abdi, who chairs the county assembly speakers’ forum.

The Members of County Assemblies (MCAs) have been demanding that their pay perks be reviewed and backdated to May but the national government has argued that the many competing demands on its budget does not allow such increments.

The MCAs demand for higher pay comes in the middle of a protracted debate over the recent decision by the national government to introduce value added tax (VAT) on key consumer goods – increasing the cost of living by large margins.

The Treasury has argued that persistent demand for higher pay by Kenya’s elected leaders and senior state officers is partly behind the quest to introduce new tax measures to shore up the revenue.

But charging VAT on essential commodities such as milk, maize meal, bread, paraffin and cooking fat has hit low-income households hard, setting the stage for a huge political backlash.

The county representatives want to more than triple their pay from the current Sh79,200 to Sh257,500 per month. The 47 county assembly speakers want their pay to more than double from Sh225,000 to Sh512,800 per month.

The demand is hinged on the pay structure of the National Assembly where MPs and the Speaker take home 43 per cent and 80 per cent of the President’s salary respectively.

The idea is to have the MCAs earn 43 per cent and the speakers to take home 80 per cent of the governor’s salary. The official pay structure gives the MCAs a 12 per cent and the speakers 35 per cent of the governor’s basic pay.

(READ: SRC to peg county chiefs’ pay on resources)

The MCAs are also demanding Sh2 million each in car grants — translating to a Sh4 billion burden on the taxpayer. The county representatives also want the State to pay their domestic staff, offer them an annual medical insurance cover of Sh5.3 million each, and special duty allowances of Sh77,523.

The Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) has termed the list of demands as unrealistic for a country whose wage bill stands above the recommended level of 7 per cent of the national revenue by by five percentage points.

On Wednesday, Dr Abdi said the MCAs were unhappy with the SRC’s insistence that any pay adjustment will be subject to job evaluation.

“We initially gave them the benefit of the doubt when they called for job evaluation three months ago but nothing has happened yet our role is clear in the constitution,” said Dr Abdi.

The impending standoff comes only four months after the March 4 polls that brought the devolved units into force. Only two out of the 47 county assemblies have passed their Finance Bills to facilitate the execution of the 2013/4 budget proposals.

This means that a prolonged strike could cause serious financial trouble for the county governments partly because the governors cannot collect the proposed taxes and levies without the passage of this crucial bill.

A prolonged strike is, however, expected to affect the operations of all the counties, including those that have passed the Finance Bill 2013.

“The Constitution is categorical that the county executives can only incur development expenditure after their plan is approved by the county assembly,” said Elizabeth Muli, the deputy chairperson of the Commission on Implementation of the Constitution (CIC).

Ms Muli said the counties could also be grounded in their bid to hire key staff in the absence of county assemblies that are mandated to vet such officials. Most of the counties have been advertising aggressively to recruit staff for key positions.

Even more worrying is the fact that the making of the 2014/5 budget, which must be concluded within the set deadlines, begins this month with the MCAs playing a crucial role.

“I don’t think county executives have any alternative to having their law makers in session,” said Peter Wanyande, the CIC commissioner in charge of devolution.

“In extreme cases, some of the counties could turn to the law which repeatedly uses the “assembly may” to argue that the legislators’ oversight role is not a must.”

This is the second time that the county reps are going on strike since their election on March 4.

Shortly after taking office in May, they followed in the footsteps of their National Assembly counterparts with the announcement of a strike that only ended after the SRC increased their allowances.

On Wednesday, Dr Abdi said all the 2,000 members would support the strike having failed to reach an agreement with SRC.

Three months ago, the SRC allowed the MCAs to hold up to a maximum of eight committee sittings per week instead of the initial four.

The SRC has also allowed the county reps to claim a flat commuter allowance of Sh20,000 per month and a responsibility allowance (speaker and majority leaders) of Sh32,000 per month.

Dr Abdi said the SRC has been passing off these allowances as pay increase while their basic pay remained stagnant.

“There will be no let-up. We are not ready to play oversight role over billions of shillings when all we earn are peanuts,” he said.