Allowances pit Salaries and Remuneration Commission against teachers' unions

The Salaries and Remuneration Commission has dug in its heels, saying accounting officers must follow its guidelines despite teachers’ unions rejecting its latest review of allowances in the public sector.

Teachers, who were getting better allowances than the rest of their peers in the public service, have emerged as the biggest losers in the new allowance structure after the commission harmonised the allowances enjoyed by civil servants.

In a move to calm the salary storm, the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) has said it only harmonised four allowances — housing, hardship, leave and subsistence/per diem — across the public sector and has not reviewed other allowances applicable in the public service.

“The review of other allowances is work in progress, and the Commission will at the opportune time dialogue with respective employers,” SRC boss Sarah Serem said in a statement.

Serem said the commission’s circular was a framework within which to engage in collective bargaining agreement negotiations with workers’ unions.

“Consequently, all accounting officers are obliged to ensure compliance with the law and guidelines issued by the Commission,” she said.

The two teachers’ unions have criticised the new allowances, with the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) indicating that it will ignore the commission’s proposals.

KNUT secretary general Wilson Sossion said his union would not be guided by reports and proposals outside negotiations with the Teachers’ Service Commission (TSC).

The Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet), on the other hand, said their demands would remain and that they would not be cajoled into accepting a few harmonised allowances.

According to the proposals, teachers just like the rest of the civil servants, will get leave allowance ranging from Sh4,000 to Sh10,000 a year depending on job groups.

House, readers, commuter and responsibility allowances will be maintained or aligned to that of other public servants.

This comes at a time when negotiations between Knut and TSC have collapsed, with Knut accusing the SRC of meddling in the affairs of teachers. Knut is pushing for a pay rise for its members.

The SRC is mandated to set and regularly review the remuneration and benefits of all State officers, and advise the national and county governments on remuneration and benefits of workers.

According to the Commission, remuneration and benefits for public servants currently take about 13 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product, or at least 52 per cent of domestic revenue.

These levels are a threat to sustainable government expenditure, the SRC says, and eats into resources that would otherwise be used for development projects.

Frozen review

The commission has frozen the review of basic salaries for public servants until the results of next year’s job evaluation are produced.

It is also counting on the Government’s move to clean up its payroll by cutting loose ghost workers to further reduce the country’s ballooning wage bill.

“Savings realised from these steps will provide more money for development purposes,” Serem said.

She added that the review of allowances was done for purposes of “harmonisation, standardisation, equity, fairness, regulation, attraction and retention in the public service and also to compensate for the cost of living”.

“Following the release of the four harmonised allowances for public officers, there have been protestations and outright misunderstanding of the SRC circular on the same. This might generate anxiety among government employees,” a statement from SRC said in part.

The SRC said it was keen to manage the clamour for higher wage increases in light of the country’s economic realities.

“The Commission is alive to the need to balance managing fiscal sustainability against rewarding employees, ensuring fairness and equity as well as spurring productivity in the public service.

“The proliferation of allowances in the public sector has been a long standing problem which the Commission is keen to address for harmony and fairness to prevail. It is important to note that most of these allowances are facilitative, not remunerative, and in most cases have been the source of disharmony in the service,” the review team said

In its defence, the SRC said subsistence allowance had been enhanced to make employees comfortable while working outside their stations.

“For the first time, teachers enjoy leave allowance and their remuneration and benefits have been harmonised with the civil service; civil servants in hardship areas now enjoy better hardship allowance as opposed to when the allowance was capped at a maximum of Sh1,200; and of course house allowance has been boosted to take care of rising cost of housing.”

The commission argued that the fact that allowances comprised a high percentage of public officers’ earnings was in itself a disadvantage to them because allowances are not pensionable.

In the coming year, the commission said it would embark on a job evaluation across the public service in an effort to ensure public officers are paid a salary commensurate with the worth of their jobs.