SRC hands civil servants fat travel allowances

Civil servants have been awarded a hefty increase in travel allowances amounting to billions of shillings that make a mockery of the government’s commitment to reduce the public wage bill.

The Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) gave public servants the early Christmas gift on Thursday with the launch of the enhanced stipend structure meant to enhance equity, harmony and take into account inflation.

Sarah Serem, the SRC chairman, said the travel allowances take effect immediately while proposed increment of house, hardship and leave allowances will take effect in July next year.

“The commission has already sent a circular to the State agencies informing them of the new structure,” Mrs Serem said, adding that all existing rates had been nullified.

“All other existing rates on the same subject, therefore, cease to apply forthwith and the respective accounting officers are personally responsible for prudent management of this benefit.”

The new allowances structure shows that the highest-ranking public servant is now entitled to Sh22,000 for a day’s stay in Naivasha, Mombasa, Kisumu, Nairobi, Kilifi, Lamu and Kwale — explaining why these towns have become popular with government retreats.

The lowest-cadre worker travelling to these towns is henceforth entitled to a Sh4,200 allowance per day.

Senior civil servants will earn Sh18,000 per day for retreats held in Nyeri, Eldoret, Kericho, Kakamega, Kilifi, Embu, Nanyuki, Nakuru, Lodwar and Garissa. The lowest-ranking officials will earn Sh3,500.

The deal gets rosier for civil servants travelling abroad who are poised to earn an average of Sh50,000 per day in allowances.

The irony is that civil servants travelling to far-flung countries like Afghanistan, Albania, Belize and Cambodia are entitled to less money than those ones travelling within the region to places like Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.

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A detailed reading of the allowances structure shows that the payouts are higher for visits to the more frequented places like Arusha in neighbouring Tanzania and Addis, the African Union headquarters (ranging between Sh60,930 and Sh21,150) while rarely visited places like war-ravaged Afghanistan attract the lowest stipends of between Sh51,750 and Sh16,110 per day.

Ongoing negotiations of the East African regional integration project, for instance, mean that trips to EAC headquarters in Arusha and the AU’s Addis are frequent and most lucrative.

Mrs Serem said the review had been informed by recent studies showing that the real value of money has been eroded and that the rates determined in 2009 can no longer facilitate officials outside their duty stations.

In addition to adjustment for inflation, Mrs Serem said that the increase in travel allowances was necessary to enhance fairness and to attract and retain relevant skills.

This is the second such review after the commission implemented one for salaries in 2012. The SRC has also proposed huge increments in housing, hardship and leave allowances for civil servants, including teachers who are agitating for a pay increase.

Hardship allowances are currently paid at the rate of Sh1,200 per month for a married employee and half that amount to employees who are single.

The SRC is now proposing to scrap this formula and instead pay absolute amounts of between Sh2,800 and Sh60,000 — a significant increase from the current figures.

If the proposal is adopted, teachers could beginning July, see their leave allowances increase to between Sh4,000 per month for a P1 teacher and Sh10,000 for the chief principal of a school.

Civil servants in job groups A to R will be entitled to housing allowances of up to Sh50,000 reflecting, in some cases, a 66 per cent raise.

Employees in higher ranks of S and T, and who reside in Nairobi, will continue earning house allowances at the current rates of Sh60,000 and Sh80,000 respectively per month.

The SRC reckons that this latest review will help reduce the public wage bill, noting that current expenditure “consumes resources meant for development projects.”

“It is projected that the taxpayer would make substantial savings annually when the commission’s advice is fully implemented,” said Mrs Serem, even as she declined to quantify the projected savings.

The commission said that even as it rationalises the benefits, it intends to cut down the number of allowances that public officials are entitled to from the current 156 to 108.

Mrs Serem said some of the allowances would be integrated into the gross pay (amounting to cross-book transfer) while others, which she declined to mention, will be scrapped.

The new allowances will also benefit civil servants who have been unfairly left out of the allowances gravy train.

Those who have now been roped in have been getting lower allowances than their colleagues in the same job group, but working in different stations.

Adding these factors to the enhanced rates poses the danger of having the reverse effect to the stated goal of public wage bill cut.

Mrs Serem, however, maintained that total allowances would fall by 25 per cent with full implementation of the changes, benefits she said would trickle down to the public wage bill.

A February 2014 report by AfDB said that African countries could increase the pace of economic growth through prudent structure and payments of allowances to civil servants.

While these allowances are sometimes justified based on the activities they were incurred for, lack of transparency has made it hard to determine whether the taxpayer gets value for money.

AfDB further noted that the per diems have forced a culture change in offices where employees are always jostling for training programmes, workshops or even out-of-office work with the primary aim of securing this money.

“Another problem with per diems is that beneficiaries start to demand to be paid for any type of training or meeting, regardless of whether or not the employee incurred expenses,” the report noted in part.