SRC Denies Workers Ksh 2.8 Billion Salary Increment Request

By Getrude Mathayo / Published May 30, 2023 | 12:12 pm

The Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) declined a 2.82 billion shillings worth of requests for increased pay by civil servants in the three months that ended March as the country battles a wage bill crisis.

SRC revealed it approved requests worth 411 million shillings against the 65 requests from public institutions amounting to 3.2 billion shillings.

In a press statement, SRC stated it received 65 requests from public institutions between January to March 2023, for the financial year 2022-2023.

The disclosures reveal the continued agitation for higher pay by civil servants in a bid to ease the impact of the high cost of living, a push that has, however, led to confrontations between the SRC and worker’s unions.

“SRC approved requests worth Sh411.4 million, against the 65 requests from public institutions amounting to Sh3.24 billion,” the agency said in its Wage Bill Bulletin for the January- March quarter.

SRC further explained that the cumulative cost of requests by public institutions for the three quarters of the Financial Year (FY) 2022/2023 is Ksh5.9 billion, compared to Ksh18.8 billion in a similar period in FY 2021/2022.

At the same time, SRC noted that expenditure on Personnel Emoluments (PE) in county governments remained above the Public Finance Management (PFM) threshold.

Workers’ lobbies notably the Central Organisation of Trade Union have publicly lashed out at the SRC, accusing the agency of frustrating the efforts of Kenyan workers to get better pay.

The agency said 80 percent of the requests were for allowances and benefits, followed by nine percent for CBAs, eight for salary increments, and requests for productivity and performance (three percent).

The total cost of the requests in the first nine months of the current financial year is Sh5.95 billion compared to Sh18.83 billion made in a similar period in the year that ended June 2022.

The data shows that the requests that SRC has approved since last July increased the wage bill by Sh2.59 billion, compared to Sh1.47 billion in a similar period in the financial year that ended June 2022.

The approvals have piled pressure on the Exchequer, which is already grappling with huge debt servicing obligations that are gobbling tax collections.

The Treasury has been struggling to tame the bloated public wage bill that now consumes over half of the total revenue, impeding spending on development projects.

A majority of Kenya’s public service labor force of at least 963, 000 workers have been pushing for higher pay in a bid to ease the impact of the runaway inflation that stood at 7.9 percent last month.