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PSC and SRC in turf war over setting perks for public servants
A photo combination of Public Service Commission chairman Anthony Muchiri (left) and the newly appointed Salaries and Remuneration Commission chair Sammy Chepkwony.
Photo credit: File | Dennis Onsongo | Nation Media Group
An initiative to control allowances paid in the public service is at stake as fights erupt between the Public Service Commission (PSC) and the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) over who has the mandate to determine pay for public service workers.
The PSC accuses the SRC of usurping its mandate by directly determining what public institutions should pay as salaries and allowances through its advisories, arguing that it is its (PSC) job to determine what public service workers should earn.
In its 2023/24 annual report, the PSC says the SRC has created pay distortions in the public service and enhanced discrimination, and is now declaring that “SRC has no power to determine remuneration and benefits in the public service.”
“The SRC’s mandate over public officers is to advise on their remuneration and benefits. This advice is supposed to be given to PSC as the employer of public officers. However, SRC has consistently given the advice directly to agencies that fall under the mandate of the PSC, thereby distorting remuneration in the public service and enhancing discrimination and unfairness,” the PSC says, highlighting the issue as an encroachment on its constitutional mandate.
Asking the SRC to offer advice on remuneration to the PSC would mean that the PSC ends up having the final say on what public service workers are paid, rather than the present case where SRC makes the call.
“Only the PSC has power to determine the remuneration and benefits of public officers upon advice from SRC,” the PSC says.
This position is likely to create chaos in the public service since the SRC has been determining crucial issues on changes to remuneration, including approving salary increments, and has already made some changes to allowances.
The SRC did not respond to questions about its position on the matter, the accusation that it has created distortions in remuneration in the public service, and whether it would consider advising the PSC on remuneration issues rather than engaging public institutions directly.
The spat, however, jeopardises an initiative the SRC is currently implementing that has involved the scrapping of several allowances, with more others marked for elimination.
The SRC began the process to streamline and abolish allowances in the public service in 2021 and has so far indicated that about Sh11 billion has been saved.
The process followed a report that showed that allowances paid in the public service have grown in number from 31 in 1999 to 247 in 2019.
Among the allowances that have been abolished through the process are the ministerial allowance for cabinet secretaries, plenary sitting allowance for members of parliament and county assembly members and the taxable car allowance for CSs, principal secretaries and judges.
The commission is currently engaging public institutions on institution-specific allowances that require to be merged, renamed, restructured, abolished or retained, an exercise the PSC is now objecting to as being an encroachment on its constitutional mandate.
Former SRC chairperson Lyn Mengich, shortly before she left office in September last year, reckoned that the real task for the SRC was to directly engage public institutions on the allowances they pay, pointing to the daunting task that awaits the newly appointed commissioners.
“That is where the real issue about inequitable pay happens, it is at allowances level. Streamlining allowances is one way of achieving harmonisation,” Ms Mengich said.
According to the Constitution, among mandates of the PSC is to ensure that the public service is efficient and effective, and developing human resources in the public service. The Constitution is, however, silent on the issue of handling remuneration in the public service in the section on the PSC.
In the section on the SRC, the Constitution states that part of its functions is setting and regularly reviewing the remuneration and benefits of all state officers, and advising the national and county governments on the remuneration and benefits of all other public officers.
The SRC’s crackdown on allowances in the public service was based on its position that the proliferation of allowances has led to “lack of transparency, inequality and unfairness in coverage, multiplicity and high proportions of allowances to basic salaries, and consequently, disparities in the gross pay paid to public officers.”
In the year to June 2023, allowances constituted Sh440 billion of the Sh1.1 trillion public wage bill, and between July 2020 and June 2023, the government spent Sh1.25 trillion on allowances.
The courts have previously ruled in favour of the SRC in advising on remuneration in the public service, holding that its advice cannot be in vain. This has given the commission power over the process of determining salaries and allowances in the public service, and the PSC now feels its cake is being eaten.
The PSC also complained of encroachment on its mandate by the State Corporations Advisory Committee (SCAC), over the management of human resources in State corporations and public universities.
“The most recent encroachment being issuance of Guidelines for Management of State Corporations that was issued vide an Executive order published in the Gazette on 3rd June 2024. There are two pending court cases touching on the question of SCAC’s encroachment on the Commission’s mandate,” the PSC said.
