A new salary structure has placed the President as the highest paid government official in Kenya while Resident Magistrates, Kadhis and Members of County Assembly have been ranked as the lowest-paid stateofficers.
The Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) with the assistance of PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) — which conducted a job evaluation for all Stateoffices — has created 112 state offices, up from the current 50.
The commission has set the President’s salary at a maximum of Sh1.6 million. At one point, the head of the anti-corruption authority was the highest paid public servant with a salary of Sh2.5 million, higher than President Kibaki’s salary. However, the salary was reduced when Mr Justice (rtd) Aaron Ringera left the office.
On Sunday, SRC chairperson Sarah Serem said the current wage bill does not allow for any public or state officer to get a salary increment unless the public is willing to pay more taxes.
“We will only recommend salary increments once the current wage bill returns to normalcy,” she said.
Under the new structure, the President was placed at level G — due to his enormous work of being responsible for cross-national, regional and global strategy formulation.
The new grading structure has also reduce the powers of the chairpersons of the Parliamentary and Judicial Service commissions whose positions were initially graded as the fifth most powerful in the government pecking order. The two are now a rank lower and at the same levels as the heads of other commissions.
According to the SRC report, the role of the Auditor-General was not comparable to that of the Controller of Budget. The evaluators, therefore, agreed that the Auditor General be more powerful.
The evaluators also said there was need to separate elective positions from appointed one in the grading structure.
“It was noted that elective positions should not have any salary progression,” the report said in yet another blow to the perennial push by MPs to raise their pay.
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