Starting on July 1, 2023, employees of the public sector will receive a pay rise of between seven and ten percent over the next two years.
Chairperson of the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC), Lyn Mengich, stated that this increment includes the current notch rise, which typically increases by 3% yearly, and is applicable to all state executives as well as the general public service.
“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.
Mengich, speaking to the media on Wednesday in Nairobi, stated that the SRC has established a four-year review cycle for pay and benefits in the public sector, with the first cycle lasting from 2013/14 to 2016/17 and the second cycle lasting from 2017/18 to 2020/21.
Mengich stated that the financial years 2021/22 to 2024/25 are covered by the third compensation and benefits review cycle.
She continued by saying that the salary structures were frozen for the first two years of the third cycle, which ran from the years 2021/22 to 2022/2023, because to the adverse economic conditions brought on by the COVID-19 epidemic.
“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,” she said.
She clarified that the evaluation protects public employees from losing purchasing power due to a decline in the real worth of their compensation and benefits to the extent of affordability and fiscal viability.
According to the commission chair, when they applied to the National Treasury for cash to execute wage increases, they were told to work with Sh. 21.7 billion rather than the Sh. 340 billion they had asked for.
“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 also emphasised that a process of streamlining allowances will start in 2021 in order to secure the financial sustainability of the public service pay bill and to establish transparency, accountability, equity, and fairness in compensation.
“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 the SRC Chairperson.
