The Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) on Wednesday outlined how the government was able to significantly and consistently reduce the public wage bill over the past six years.
In a post on X, the commission reported that it had advised on the Daily Subsistence Allowance(DSA) and abolished several allowances that were previously available for public service employees including Cabinet Secretaries (CSs) and Members of Parliament (MPs).
“SRC has reduced the total public wage bill by advising on DSAs and abolishing some allowances as indicated,” the post read.
Among the most notable allowances cut were ministerial allowances for Cabinet Secretaries and plenary sitting allowances for MPs and Members of County Assemblies (MCAs). Taxable car allowance for CSs, PSs, and judges was also implemented.
Other sectors that suffered the cut were; taskforces, retreats, as well as in institutional internal committees.
This move significantly reduced the public wage bill and has been instrumental in keeping the trend for the past six years.
On August 29, the commission announced that it had marked a 4.9% clocking at 46.6% of the total ordinary revenue in the 2022/2023 financial year.
This decrease mirrored the progressive drop over the past six years beginning from the 2017/2018 financial year with 51.54% to 47.06% in the 2021/2022 financial year.
It is projected that the wage bill ratio will reduce to a further 39.22% in the 2023/2024 financial year. However, despite the significant drop, it still does not cut it to the recommended 35% of the national revenue.
The latter remains a far-off goal that is expected to be achieved by the year 2028 which will be achieved by the government cutting down its expenditure and generating more revenue from different sectors.
In an interview with a local radio station on September 4, the SRC Chairperson Lynn Mengich described the nation’s wage bill as bloated as it had gradually hit the trillion shilling mark.
“We may say it is bloated but it is good to look at the context of that in terms of what really constitutes this wage bill and what is driving the wage bill. If you look at the wage bill today, yes it is at a trillion but actually 50 percent of the wage bill is in the Teaching Sector for teachers' and lecturers' salaries,” she said.
Most counties and also the national government have failed to maintain the 35% recommended mark of revenue collected according to the Public Finance Management Act.
