The Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) has directed all public institutions to submit lists of all allowances payable to civil servants for review.
In a statement on Thursday, October 7, the SRC said it will analyze and advise on the new structure of allowances for civil servants by the end of April 2022.
The Commission had announced that it will initiate measures to tame Kenya’s ballooning public wage bill.
A draft policy on allowances shows that the SRC plans to abolish facilitative allowances for all new employees joining the civil service.
Reports indicate that SRC wants to cap allowances at not more than 40 per cent of the monthly gross pay for state employees.
At the moment, there are over 247 remunerative and facilitative allowances, up from 31 in the year 1999.
The perks are payable within the public sector and can double a worker’s monthly pay.
Facilitative allowances are paid to meet expenses incurred by civil servants and they include perks such as daily subsistence allowance or per diems.
They also get other perks such as medical allowance, entertainment allowance, and utility allowance to cater to water, electricity, airtime, and security bills which are under the workers’ basic pay.
SRC was seeking to introduce a cut in the perks and also halt hiring and remove ghost workers to reduce Kenya’s increasing public sector wage bill.
The SRC spared 865,200 workers attached to the government and state corporations from the cuts that are set to reduce the monthly take-homes for new staff.
