The Cabinet Secretary for Public Service, Affirmative Action and Gender Aisha Jumwa has announced plans to to increase salaries for civil servants in the next 100 days.
According to Jumwa, civil servants are demoralised due to the rising cost of living, hence the need to put them at par with other earners.
“Civil servants are a demoralised lot and we don’t want to see them suffering. They are unable to cope with the high cost of living occasioned by runaway inflation. As Kenya Kwanza Government, we want to revamp their morale by increasing their salaries as soon as possible,” said Ms Jumwa.
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“I am a leader and a mother too. I know a majority of the public servants are grappling to pay school fees for their children, pay rent and fend for their families. It’s a sad state of affairs but I have come to solve the problem so that they can live a dignified life.”
Currently, the government has over 923,000 public servants in the country whose wage bill stands at more than Ksh890 billion annually. Jumwa however denies that the public wage bill is bloated.
“We have 900,000 people working for 50 million Kenyans. Who says we have a bloated wage bill? The country has enough money to give the public servants a pay rise and carry on with its development agenda,” she said.
The government last reviewed the minimum wage for civil servants in May 2018 at the rate of five per cent.
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