Gladys Boss: Kenyans Don’t Mind Paying A Lot For Public Officials Salaries, Provided They Perform
National Assembly Deputy Speaker Gladys Boss emphasizes that Kenyans prioritize service delivery and the effectiveness of public servants over the proportion of the national budget allocated to their salaries.
This comes following President William Ruto’s statement to protesting doctors, highlighting the country’s challenge with a substantial wage bill and the government’s inability to fulfill their requests.
Last week, Ruto remarked that Kenya’s payroll expenditure stands at 47 percent, exceeding the recommended 35 percent, and he attributed the task of decreasing it to employed individuals in Kenya.
The deputy speaker of the National Assembly contends that Kenyans are willing to compensate public officials for quality service rendered.
“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.
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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.”
According to Boss, the key isn’t reducing wages, but rather prioritizing economic transformation to expand 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 percent of a big amount,” she said.
Last week, President Ruto reiterated that the nation wouldn’t take on debt to cover salaries. He also affirmed that all intern doctors would be included according to the government’s proposed conditions.
Medical professionals ceased working on March 14 and have since been demonstrating against the government’s neglect to assign medical interns and adhere to a 2017 Collective Bargaining Agreement regarding doctors’ working conditions.
The government has proposed a payment of Ksh.70,000 for medical interns instead of the Ksh.206,000 outlined in the 2017 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).
Gladys Boss: Kenyans Don’t Mind Paying A Lot For Public Officials Salaries, Provided They Perform
