'What is 10k?' Furious Mandera MCAs up in arms over salary increment

Mandera County MCAs have taken issue with the Salary and Remuneration Commission's (SRC) decision to increase their gross salary by Ksh.10,000, labelling the move as unfair.

SRC communicated the pay increment, which will be instituted in two phases, via a circular on Wednesday noting that MCAs will from July earn Ksh.154,481 up from Ksh.144,375.

County Assembly speakers will see their salaries increased to Ksh.562,312 from Ksh.525,525 in this financial year but the amount will rise to Ksh.601,674 in the 2024/25 financial year.

Deputy Speakers will from July take home Ksh.231,722 from Ksh.216,563 with the figure expected to rise to Ksh.247,943 in the 2024/25 financial year while majority and minority leaders will make Ksh.191,324 from July and Ksh.204,717 per month in the next financial year.

The Mandera MCAs are against the proposed pay hike largely because county speakers, deputy speakers, majority and minority leaders are principally MCAs.

"Where is the transparency and fairness in that circular that SRC put forward yesterday? How can they increase salaries for a section of MCAs and leave others?" one of the Mandera MCAs posed to Citizen Digital on Thursday.

"One thing the SRC must understand is that the majority leader, minority leader, speaker and the deputy speaker are first and foremost MCAs ."

The Mandera MCAs proceeded to ask their counterparts from different counties to down their tools in protest of the salary changes.

"The Commission has only increased the basic salary by a mere Ksh.10,000 in order to cater for the 1.5 pc Kenya Kwanza government housing levy. We, therefore, call upon all MCAs in the country to come out and reject the new proposals by SRC in its entirety," another MCA said.