Kenyans employed in the public service will have to brace themselves for a massive pay cut by the Salaries and Remunerations Commission.
The SRC has started reviewing the 149 allowances that are paid out to employees, with the objective of eliminating most of them.
The commission wants only the relevant allowances to be consolidated in the basic salary structure, instead of the current scenario where some civil servants live off allowances.
The first phase of the review will involve reviewing house, hardship, leave, and subsistence allowances.
The second will involve updating the list of grants and engaging stakeholders before the final implementation of the recommendation.
“Despite various initiatives taken to rationalise allowances in the public service, they have continued to increase significantly in terms of numbers and amount relative to salaries,” Lyn Mengich, SRC chair told Nation on Wednesday.
In some instances, a person whose average basic pay is Ksh32,367 sometimes ends up getting a mean gross salary of Ksh158,487 after allowances.
Some of the allowances facing the cut are those paid for similar purposes but have different names.
For example, a special duty allowance is paid to an officer to perform the duties of a higher post but does not possess the necessary qualifications for appointment to that post. It is expected that it should be covered by the acting allowance.
The SRC also decried that some of the allowances had different methods of payment making them difficult to track and account for.
“In the absence of data, and the fact that the payroll is not integrated and some of the allowances are paid through vouchers, it is difficult to ascertain the amounts being paid,” the commission noted.
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