In a bold statement on Citizen TV on Tuesday, April 16, Deputy National Assembly Speaker Gladys Shollei called for the urgent need for the government to strengthen the Salaries and Remuneration Commission's (SRC) role in managing the country's public wage bill.
Shollei expressed concerns over the apparent ineffectiveness of the SRC in controlling the wage structures across various governmental arms, stating, "Even if SRC keeps talking and saying this is what should happen, we should use the wage bill. What you should be looking at is first harmonising, so that the advice comes from one central place, which is SRC. But right now, SRC is not in control."
The Deputy Speaker's remarks follow recent declarations by SRC Chairperson Lyn Mengich, who firmly advised against any salary increases for civil servants during the 3rd National Wage Bill Conference. Mengich's directives aim to curb the rising wage bill to maintain fiscal sustainability.
Drawing from her experience as the former Judiciary Chief Registrar, Shollei highlighted significant discrepancies in salary structures, particularly within the judiciary.
"We just ignored the SRC because we had a challenge at that time," she revealed, pointing to the severe underpayment of qualified judicial staff and the resulting corruption in court scheduling practices.
The Deputy Speaker critiqued the piecemeal approach to establishing the SRC during the constitutional talks at Bomas, which led to overlapping mandates among different commissions like the Judicial Service Commission and the Parliamentary Service Commission.
"We didn’t break the other structures. We just added a new structure called SRC," she added.
Economist Billow Kerrow supported Shollei's call for legislative action, urging the government to introduce amendments to empower SRC.
"If this is a critical thing to the government, it's the best time for the government to bring it up in an amendment and give the powers to SRC. It doesn't need a referendum, in fact, it gives powers to SRC so that its guidance becomes obligatory to other commissions that are responsible for remuneration," Kerrow stated.
Kitui Central MP, Makali Mulu, echoed these sentiments on the same TV show, emphasising the importance of SRC's role in determining remunerations scientifically and impartially.
"Matters of remuneration should be determined by SRC so that the other bodies should take care of the other HR issues," Mulu remarked.
Shollei's proposal to restructure the SRC's powers aims to centralise and rationalize salary determinations to prevent disparities and ensure equal treatment across all levels of public service.
SRC and the Public Service Commission are hosting the 3rd National Wage Bill Conference at the Bomas of Kenya, aimed at, among other things, deliberating on how the country can reduce the public wage bill from the current 43 per cent of the country’s revenue to 35 per cent.
At the week-long conference that started on Monday, April 15, the government revealed it is working with the World Bank to develop a new unified civil servants Human Resource system, that will eventually phase out the structure employed currently.
