NAIROBI, Kenya, Sept 4 – The Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) has launched the third public sector remuneration cycle, which will determine what state and public officers will earn from 2021 to 2025.
SRC Chairperson Lynn Mengich said the cycle will be anchored on the principles of pay determination as set out in the law to ensure sustainability.
She also assured that the exercise will be fair and transparent and is only aimed at reducing the wage bill.
“In carrying out the forthcoming job evaluation and salary surveys, the Commission shall uphold the confidentiality of data from the public sector and participating private sector institutions,” she said during a press conference.
She urged all the public sector institutions to participate in the job evaluation and salary survey process.
The first cycle ran for the period 2013/2014 -2017/18 while the second was between the years 2017/18-2021/22.
She revealed that the commission is set to conduct comparative surveys on labour trends in remuneration, in a bid to determine the monetary worth of the jobs in the public sector.
In the absence of a common policy framework to guide determination and payment of allowances in the public sector, Mengich said, different institutions pay allowances using different justifications, eligibility criteria , rates and modes of payment.”
The move to streamline allowances, she said, will enhance transparency, accountability, equity and fairness.
On wage bill, she said, the commission mandate will be to ensure the trend is fiscally sustainable.
“While the current public sector wage bill has shown a positive trend as a percentage of ordinary revenue and as a ration to Gross Domestic Product(GDP), there is room for improvement,” she stated.
Between 2013/2014 to 2018/19, she said, the wage bill dropped from 57.33 percent to 48.1 percent.
“The positive trend is largely as a result of both revenue growth and initiatives by SRC, in collaboration with key stakeholders and players in government. However, the current wage bill does not match the national economic and revenue growth patterns, thus putting pressure on development and investment share of fiscal budget,” she said.
