How Ruto's rejection of salary raise affects Uhuru's pension - SRC boss reveals

The Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) Chairperson Lyn Mengich has disclosed that President William Ruto and his deputy Rigathi Gachagua will not have any salary increment for the next two years.

Ms. Mengich, who spoke on Thursday during Citizen TV’s The Tonight Show, said SRC is constitutionally mandated to review the salaries in the public sector within a period of two years.

She however revealed that President Ruto and DP Gachagua wrote to the commission through the Head of Public Service rejecting a salary increment proposal by SRC.

The SRC boss stated that the commission has since approved the rejection, meaning salaries of the country’s top two leaders will now remain unaltered up to 2025.

“The Head of Public Service wrote to us and informed us that the President and his deputy do not want a salary increase, and that will not change for the next two years,” she said.

“Once we have set the pay for a two-year period, then go back to the calculations and see how much money is available; if there is no increase, then it remains for that period…So even if they change their mind, that will not change up to June 2025.”

The proposals by SRC would have seen the current salaries for President Ruto and his deputy rise from the current Ksh.1.44 million to Ksh.1.54 million and Ksh.1.22 million to Ksh.1.36 million respectively.

In the same light, the Commissioner divulged that President Ruto’s rejection of the increment, in turn, also affects the monthly pension of his predecessor Uhuru Kenyatta.

A retired Head of State’s monthly pension is set at 80 per cent of his pensionable pay, which is equivalent to 60 per cent of a sitting President’s salary.

This, hence means, that if a sitting President’s salary increases, then the monthly pension of their predecessor also does. If it stays the same, as it now will following President Ruto’s rejection of an increment, then the pension of their predecessor stays stagnant.

On being asked if Uhuru will now get a percentage of President Ruto’s current Ksh.1.44 million salary, or the Ksh.1.54 million that had been projected had the increment been reflected, Ms. Mengich stated that SRC’s proposed raise automatically became invalid after the rejection, hence is out of the equation.

“What is rejected does not exist because once we have set, that is what is set. So whatever was there before cannot be used as the basis because those were the proposals before we actually set, so what is valid is what the commission has set,” she said.