Treasury given one week to pay teachers additional Sh1.4bn

The Treasury has one week to pay teachers an additional Sh1.4 billion following a Supreme Court ruling Monday that punched a Sh17 billion hole in the national budget.

The Supreme Court dismissed an application filed by the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) that sought to reverse conditional orders by the Court of Appeal directing the government to pay teachers the amount.

READ: Teachers’ pay award was against law, says TSC

A five-judge bench consisting of Chief Justice Willy Mutunga, his deputy Kalpana Rawal, Smokin Wanjala, Mohammed Ibrahim and Jackton Ojwang’ upheld a Court of Appeal ruling demanding the teachers’ employer to pay teachers a 50-60 per cent pay rise until its appeal challenging the increment is heard and determined.

The TSC had earlier estimated that implementing the increment over a four-year period would cost the Treasury an extra Sh73 billion.

The teachers’ employer has already paid the 280,000 public tutors their August salaries and has up to end of the month to top-up the balance.

The Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) lawyer Judy Guserwa argued that the increase was a proposal from the teacher’s employer, and that they wrote to the Treasury in October about the intended proposal but it was not factored in the budget.

In dismissing the application by TSC Monday, the Supreme Court also ordered the State agency to pay the legal costs incurred by the Kenya National Union of Teachers and Kuppet in filing the application.

Speaking to the Business Daily after the ruling, the teachers’ lawyers said that the government has to comply with court orders.

“They cannot disobey Supreme Court orders even if the salaries have already been paid. The increment must be reflected from this month,” said Ms Guserwa.

“We will tomorrow (Tuesday) write to the Treasury, the Salaries and Remuneration Commission and the Teachers Service Commission asking them to comply by paying the increment before Monday, August 31 or they will be in contempt of court,” Senior Counsel Paul Muite told journalists.

In their ruling, the Supreme Court judges said that the application filed by the teachers’ employer contested the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeal yet they had not filed an appeal or intended to file the appeal in the Supreme Court.

The judges said that an early involvement by the highest court of the land would expose one of the parties to prejudice and lead to an unfair outcome.

“Any square involvement of this court would entail comments on the merits being made prematurely on issues yet to be adjudged at the Court of Appeal and for which the priority date of September 22 has already been assigned,” the judges ruled.

TSC had gone to the highest court in the land seeking a reversal of the conditional orders that had been granted by the Court of Appeal.

The teachers’ employer had argued that increasing tutors’ pay by between 50 and 60 per cent could not be implemented because it was unconstitutional and the increment would not be retrievable if it won the Court of Appeal case.

But the Knut through its lawyers Mr Muite and Kioko Kilukumi argued that implementing the orders issued by the Court of Appeal would not cost Sh73 billion at once as the increment would only be factored for two or three months before the matter was determined.

“If TSC succeeds in its appeal the effect is completely reversible as teachers are salaried and pensionable. Teachers must be properly remunerated for them to render their services. The schooling system is central to our nation’s growth and that should be the focus of public interest,” the lawyers said.