The National Treasury will resist MPs' plans to slash the money allocated to the Salaries and Remuneration Commission in the 2019-20 budget.
Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich on Thursday assured the commission that the executive will not watch as the MPs make good their threats to cut their budget in the fiscal plan.
MPs have engaged the commission in a protracted confrontation surrounding their remuneration and allowances, the latest being Sh250,000 the lawmakers awarded themselves.
SRC rejected the move terming it illegal and obtained orders against it from the courts. In reprisal, the legislators voted to deny the agency Sh125.6 million relating to various items contained in the second supplementary budget for 2018-19.
The money had been allocated for the purchase of motor vehicles (Sh99.17 million) and refurbishment of buildings (Sh20.4 million). The rest relates to domestic travel and subsistence (Sh2.85 million), operating expenses (Sh2 million) and purchase of furniture (Sh1.13 million).
The cuts were contained in a report of the National Assembly Budget and Appropriations Committee on supplementary estimates tabled in the House early this month.
Other than the supplementary appropriations, the lawmakers have also threatened to shave off select allocations from the commission budget in the new financial year's budget.
But speaking while launching the commission's second strategic plan at a city hotel, Rotich said the commission has been vital in helping the state manage the ever-ballooning public wage bill and hence will fight to protect it in its feud with the legislators.
"As an independent commission, we will protect your allocations because you are helping the government in managing the wage bill," he said.
Rotich said the National Treasury is behind the commission's insistence on productivity before remuneration "as public service is about creating an impact as you serve people, not amassing wealth".
He announced that the state will implement radical interventions to cut down the public wage bill, which, he said, is running to over Sh700 billion, eating away over 50 per cent of the national revenue.
Among the intervention he cited include eliminating ghost workers and restructuring the government.
"We will also encourage the private sector to significantly participate in the provision of health and education services as part of reducing the wage bill," Rotich said.
The commission's vice-chair Dalmas Otieno said they were aware many forces were against its work for streamlining the benefits public officers receive.
"We know many bargainers for public coffers including MPs and trade unions want a weakened SRC so they overrun in pursuit of unfettered access to public resources. This will not happen," he said.
In its plan that covers the financial years 2019-20 to 2023-24, the commission cited large portfolios of allowances and the unending clamour for higher salaries and benefits as among the threats it's facing in executing its mandates.
The plan explains that the commission is working in an 'unstable and unpredictable labour environment' and this portends major threats to it achieving its objectives.
Edited by R.Wamochie
