For the umpteenth time, the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) has given the State ministries, departments and agencies up to November 30 to release a list of allowances paid to staff.
The allowances will be capped at 40 percent of the gross monthly pay, reducing it from as high as 259 percent, meaning the unsightly allowances currently raise the pay of an employee by up to three and a half times.
For the umpteenth time, the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) has given the State ministries, departments and agencies up to November 30 to release a list of allowances paid to staff in yet another attempt to trim the juicy perks that are a painful headache for taxpayers.
The allowances will be capped at 40 percent of the gross monthly pay, reducing it from as high as 259 percent, meaning the unsightly allowances currently raise the pay of an employee by up to three and a half times.
The capping, the agency says, is intended to free up more resources for development.
The allowances have grown to 247 from the small figure of 31 two decades ago. Sadly, the development-money argument has been the refrain since time aeons. There should be a change of tack.
A bloated wage bill is one of the weakest links that Kenya’s development partners and multilateral agencies like the IMF and the World Bank have been citing as barriers to economic growth. Again, for decades.
Apart from the pressures coming from the development agencies, the SRC is not a new agency and has been spending more time than necessary on warning how the public service wage budget will be trimmed.
Besides this, a number of talks and seminars have been organised and fat allowances paid to discuss how to trim the pay.
As it is, this is one of the areas that policymakers have given the Kenyan taxpayer a raw deal, considering that some of the perks are job-related and have been used to make the civil servants richer instead of serving Kenyans better.
In June, the SRC froze an estimated Sh82 billion salary increment for two years to try and manage Kenya’s deteriorating cash flow position.
However, freezing pay increase when allowances are freely flowing like manna and raining like wedding confetti is of no consequence to the civil servant who has been made to believe the perks are a right.
We urge the government, led by the salaries agency, to put these plans into action and share with Kenyans the accrued gains, instead of screaming at the top of their voices while the gravy train was becoming merrier by the day.
What the taxpayer is waiting for is a careful review of the perks that will see both the taxpayer and the worker get value for money.
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Note: The results are not exact but very close to the actual.
