Salaries and Remuneration Commission chairperson Sarah Serem (centre),
flanked by Jason Namasake, a commissioner at the body, addresses
journalists on January 19, 2015. PHOTO | SALATON NJAU |
NATION MEDIA GROUP
As Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) assures public
servants that the on-going job evaluation has nothing to do with job
cuts, fears are rife that some jobs might be scrapped altogether.
Already,
the commission while insisting that the process should not be
misconstrued to mean job cuts, has revealed that the exercise will be
completed in April, next year.
The valuation covers
about 680,000 public officers, spread over 1,000 job positions in the
Service and Regulatory and Commercial and Strategic State Corporations
Sector.
The commission is committed to ensuring the
public service is able to competitively attract employees with relevant
skills for the job market, whose salaries the economy can sustain,
according to SRC Commissioner Sellestine Kiuluku.
The
exercise, she added, is meant to determine worth of jobs based on a
systematic assessment of complexity of job content and requirements and
establish a grading structure for the entire public service.
ELIGIBLE FOR REVIEW
The
remuneration for each grade shall be determined by the pay structure
developed through a salary system emanating from a salary benchmarking
exercise.
Employees that will be found to have been
undervalued on completion of the exercise that started in March would be
eligible for a review of their salaries though the commission was
non-committal on whether the latter deserve compensation for the years
they were underpaid.
But, for those whose jobs are
overvalued or there is no change in the job value, their salaries will
not be subjected to any adjustments.
“This grading
structure will see some positions scrapped or merged. If some salaries
are increased, those whose pay cannot be reduced due to labour laws that
discourage such, a move, might be under pressure to leave,” said Mr
Japheth Ongoma, a civil servant.
He insists that this
exercise is meant to manage the soaring public wage bill as much as it
would promote fair employment and remuneration practices.
Before
the inception of SRC, he pointed out, the public sector remuneration
and benefits were arrived at through ad hoc committees and commissions
resulting to huge disparities in the payments that affected morale among
some staff.
Ms Kiuluku said the affected employees
also include those working in county governments, research institutions
and universities, constitutional commissions and independent offices.
The
commissioner, who is also the team leader for the Service and
Regulatory State Corporations, spoke on Friday during a meeting with
CEOs of state corporations at the Intercontinental Hotel, Nairobi.
She
observed that the country’s public sector productivity is currently low
compared to other countries and emphasised on the importance of
investing in improving performance.
Ms Kiuluku, who was
accompanied by the Commissioner in-charge of the Strategic and
Commercial State Corporations Anne Owuor, added that employees from
various government ministries are also being trained about job
evaluation to build capacity for future engagements.
Ms
Owuor downplayed claims that job evaluation would lead to sacking of
workers and urged those still in doubt to support the consulting firms
to fast-track the process.
“Job evaluation will assist
in negotiations for better terms based on the real value of the jobs.
It is not an exercise in vain. It promotes fairness at the place of work
and enhances productivity,” she said.
There were
concerns that the exercise is not all inclusive. Joseph Magoma, a
teacher, claims that SRC is biased and would not touch on the executive
and politicians who take home a fortune monthly in salaries and
allowances.
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