Auditor General, SRC sound alarm over wastage in public sector

Allowances paid to public servants could face the largest cut as the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) issued far reaching recommendations to President William Ruto.

In their presentation at State House in Nairobi, SRC painted a grim picture of how the civil servants have been gobbling a huge chunk of government revenue – upto 51 per cent - through allowances.

SRC Chairperson Lyn Mengich said: “It is not only about the basic salary that is an issue, allowances is also a big issue...there is too much wastage....you can imagine it goes upto 300 per cent of the basic salary.”

The commission also raised a red flag over the country's wage bill, stating that county governments could not deliver on planned development projects as a huge per cent of the funding was spent on salaries and allowances.

“The Controller of Budget report indicates that in some counties over 65 per cent of revenue is spent on wage bill,” stated Ms. Mengich.

The office of the Controller of Budget, the office of the Auditor General and the SRC say they have been making recommendations to the Executive for review of salaries, allowances and benefits of State officers and that they exposed the leakage of public funds but their reports have continued to gather dust.

Ms. Mengich said: “We have all these reports but nobody has bothered to look at them.”

Auditor General Nancy Gathungu said: “If we follow the reports of the Controller of Budget down the river, we will not be having all the headlines that the country is not developing…is not getting out of wastage and corruption.”

The Auditor General also cited pending bills as another headache in both levels of government.

“By not paying pending bills, we are sabotaging the very bottom-up economy that we are talking about…we must pay what service providers have delivered,” added Ms. Gathungu.

President William Ruto and his deputy Rigathi Gachagua affirmed to the commissions that their reports will be implemented.

“You have said yourselves you have challenged implementation of the reports…you always send to the office of the deputy president, we will make sure we do what the reports say,” said President Ruto.

DP Gachagua stated: “Ours is to create an engagement platform so that we can make these commissions’ work beneficial.”