The 47 county public service boards have moved to court seeking to be paid double their earnings while accusing the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) of underpaying and placing them under inferior job grades.
They say in a petition at the Employment and Labour Court that their counterparts at the Public Service Commission (PSC) are paid twice what they earn, yet they perform similar functions.
The County Public Service Boards National Consultative Forum further accuses the SRC of failing to recognise them as State officers, occasioning them a loss of benefits and gratuities due to them, yet they were competitively recruited.
“Specifically, it follows that members of the County Public Service Board are, for all intents and purposes, State officers, within the contemplation of Article 260 of the Constitution, just like their contemporaries in the Public Service Commission,” the petition states.
The boards claim unlike their counterparts in the PSC, whose chairperson is paid a gross salary of Sh765,188, their counterparts in the county are paid Sh340,733.
The chairperson at PSC has a medical cover (inpatient) of up to Sh10 million while the chairperson in the county is entitled to Sh2 million.
Further, those under PSC have a house allowance and official transport.
They further claim that the vice chairperson of PSC is paid Sh650,000 while at the county, the vice chairperson is paid Sh243,967.
The county public service boards accuse the SRC of omitting the salaries from a Gazette Notice published on July 27, 2022, which set the salaries for members of the PSC.
“The petitioners contend that the respondent has acted unconstitutionally, unreasonably and illegally by usurping the mandate of the County Public Service Boards by purporting to set the remuneration and benefits of officers in the county public service, contrary to the provisions of article 230 (4) of the Constitution,” the petition states.
