The Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) is currently reviewing State officers’ pay, planning for higher perks for the President, Cabinet secretaries, judges and Members of Parliament from July 2021.
The new module involves benchmarking the new pay structure on what neighbouring countries, South Africa, India, Canada and the US pay holders of similar offices. The review is inline with SRCs mandate to review the State officers’ pay every four years.
The commission says the upward trajectory is to accommodate inflation and compensate for the 2017 salary cuts. Kenyan lawmakers, who are some of the best-paid lawmakers in the world would have got a 15pc pay cut that was intended to reduce the public wage bill in 2017 with the aim of saving Sh8.5 billion.
This was after the previous review which took effect after August 2017 elections, triggering court suits, however, the court suits by MPs and MCAs froze the reductions but other State officers like head of police, Cabinet secretaries and principal secretaries saw their pay reduce by up to 12.5pc or Sh132,000 monthly.
The SRC said the President’s salary would be cut to Sh1.44 million a month from Sh1.65 million, while the Deputy President was to earn Sh1.23 million from Sh1.4.
“Given the cuts that happened in 2017, there will be a justification to increase or worse restore the salaries,” said a SRC commissioner who sought anonymity.
The commission says the new pay will take effect a year before the General Election in August 2022, exposing the process to intense lobbying for higher perks by MPs and members of the county assemblies (MCAs).
The new pay wil be law untill 2025 and will also affect the salaries of principal secretaries, the Attorney-General, the Chief of the Defence Forces, military service commanders, heads of the police as well as chairpersons and members of constitutional commissions.
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