Bad News to Civil Servants as Govt Stops Allowances

The Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) made a significant announcement on Monday, revealing its plans to discontinue multiple allowances provided to state officers.

This directive by the SRC is expected to have a far-reaching impact, affecting civil servants in various job categories across different Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs).

Among the allowances that will no longer be granted are the plenary sitting allowance, ministerial allowance, and taxable car allowance.

Others include; retreat allowance, sitting allowance for institutional internal committees and taskforce allowance for institutional internal committees. 

Speaking to a local media house an official at SRC stated that the six allowances had already ceased to be payable. 

This comes even as Members of Parliament in August 2022 threatened to disband SRC, after the commission proposed to abolish the plenary sittings allowance for MPs and Members of the County Assembly (MCAs). 

The MPs argued that this would greatly affect their income as they are paid allowances for a minimum of four sittings per week. 

According to SRC’s circular issued on August 2023,  the retreat allowance is paid to public officers who participate in special assignments. The allowance is strictly allocated to state officers who develop and produce policy documents away from their offices. 

While abolishing the allowance, SRC issued the justification that a staffer’s capabilities are established during the recruitment phase hence the need for extra allowances that don’t offer value for taxpayer money is unnecessary.

SRC further argued that paying Sitting Allowance for Members of the Institutional Internal Committee together on top of their basic salary amounts to double the compensation. 

“Internal institution taskforces are constituted to execute the mandate of the institution,” SRC stated.