Gladys Boss: Kenyans don't mind paying a lot for public officials salaries, provided they perform

National Assembly Deputy Speaker Gladys Boss says Kenyans care more about service delivery and the performance of public servants than the fraction of the national budget the officials’ salaries account for.

This is in the wake of President William Ruto’s message to striking doctors that the country is struggling with a huge wage bill and that the government cannot meet their demands.

Ruto last week said Kenya’s wage bill is at 47 per cent against the recommended 35 per cent, pinning the responsibility of reducing it on salaried Kenyans.

The National Assembly deputy speaker argues that Kenyans have no problem paying for good service from public officials.

“Kenyans don’t have a problem with employing people; what they have been demanding is performance, that is the challenge,” Boss told Citizen TV’s Daybreak program on Tuesday.

The former Judiciary Chief Registrar added; “My experience at the Judiciary is that people were frustrated by the amount of time court cases take. If you told a Kenyan whose matter has been in court for the last 10 years that their case will be heard in under a year if they pay more, they will be happy to pay.”

In Boss’ view, the solution would not be bringing down the wage bill but focusing on economic transformation to widen the tax base.

“We should be focusing more on economic transformation. If we have economic transformation as a country, we will be collecting more taxes and have more resources to pay for the workforce. It will be 35 per cent of a big amount,” she said.

President Ruto last week maintained that the country will not borrow to pay salaries, adding that all intern doctors will be absorbed under the terms the government has offered.

Medics downed their tools on March 14 and have been protesting the government’s failure to post medical interns and obey a 2017 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) on doctors’ labour terms.

The government has presented a Ksh.70,000 offer for the medical interns in place of the Ksh.206,000 set in the 2017 CBA.