"Fair wage policies possible"

The Sunday Nation of October 26, 1997, carried an article, by Joseph Alex Gichuhi, titled: "Fair wage policies possible". This was a time when teachers in Kenya had gone on strike over pay. Mr. Gichuhi envisioned a time when there would be a single agency responsible for "determining whether the total wage bill (was) economically compatible with the other development needs, and striking a balance between the various Government services". 

When the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) was created by the Constitution of Kenya, 2010, it was expected that the wage bill would soon be aligned with the country's "other development needs". There was hope that the compensation structures across the public sector would also be harmonized through a rational and fair process. Hitherto, the compensation structures for the public sector had been constructed haphazardly, often without form. Over the years, the total wage bill continued to rise unabated, while disparities in the compensation structures widened.

Logically, the process of aligning the public sector's wage bill with the country's "other development needs", should be a continuous one and not a onetime event. A critical success factor for this process is ownership. Undoubtedly, the ownership must belong to the key stakeholders, who should remain actively engaged year-in, year-out. The stakeholders remain responsible for managing and maintaining "a striking balance between the various Government services", and other competing needs.

The same can be said about the harmonization of the compensation structures across the public sector. The ownership of any harmonization process must belong to the stakeholders. Strategic and policy decisions will, of necessity, emerge during the process. These can be addressed only by the stakeholders.

 Indeed, in their wisdom, the authors of the Kenya Constitution, 2010, gave the SRC, as its primary mandate, the responsibility to: "set and regularly review the remuneration and benefits of all State officers". Its role, in so far as all the other Public Officers goes, is advisory. (Perhaps 'advisory', as a concept, is as nebulous as the classification between the 'State', and the 'Public' Officers.)

We could probably draw lessons from the Civil Service Reform Programs (CSRP) of the 1980s and 1990s, for the sub-Saharan Africa. The purpose of the CSRP was to restructure the Civil Service and other public institutions, including Local Government Institutions, and government corporations. The goal was to lower expenditure on wages, raise productivity, and efficiency in services delivery, Governments were also encouraged to take austerity measures in order to control their budgets. It was expected that, these actions, coupled with good governance, would help stimulate economic growth in the region, leading to a reduction in extreme poverty.

Without exception, country after country embarked on job evaluation exercises as the main drivers for achieving these results. But, the job evaluation systems used were flawed, rendering all such exercises useless. In any case, the approach was totally incongruous with the stated objectives of the Civil Service Reform Programs. Invariably, all these efforts failed to produce the desired outcomes; eventually, prompting both Mr. Gordon Brown and Professor Jeffrey Sachs to question the wisdom that had gone into some of the prescriptions of the World Bank and the IMF for reforms in the sub-Saharan Africa.

Unfortunately, the SRC has repeated exactly the same mistakes as those of the CSRP era of the 1980s/1990s. And definitely, there cannot be any consolation in the knowledge that, similar mistakes occurred in 2004/'05, when a job evaluation exercise for the Civil Service was conducted in Kenya. The results of the exercise could not be implemented! Similarly, didn't the Prime Minister's Office attempt a job evaluation exercise in 2011? But, sometimes our memories can be short!

In conclusion, there is no doubt in my mind, that the results of the exercises commissioned by the SRC, at colossal sums of money – against professional advice - cannot be implemented, since they are not implementable. Then, the important question remains: considering that the SRC can only rely on information deriving from flawed exercises, should the Commission be part of the ongoing CBA discussions? For me, this would seem to defy logic!