The Public Service Cabinet Secretary Geoffrey Ruku has dismissed claims of plans to slash civil servants’ salaries.
In his address to the public servants yesterday, Ruku stated that there is no plan to slash civil servants’ salaries. He dismissed such claims as misleading and unnecessary.
This comes after several weeks of anxiety over claims of plans to slash civil servants’ salaries following a salary hike approved by the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC). The salary hike will take effect on January 1, 2026. The increase has been backdated to July 1, 2025, under Phase One of the 2025-2029 Remuneration Review Cycle.
But Ruku moved quickly to calm the situation.
“We just revised the salaries upwards the other day. I want to tell you that the government has no plans at all to adjust the salaries downwards,” he said during an interview on Radio Citizen.
He added that any decision to reduce salaries would require approval from Parliament, and no such proposal exists.
“It is only Parliament that can make such cuts through the law, and there is nothing like that before the House. There is no need to panic,” he said.
Under the new salary structure, civil servants from grades CSG1 to CSG17 are set to benefit. The review also introduced a Salary Market Adjustment (SMA), which brings together several allowances into one payment to make the system simpler.
House allowances have been grouped into three clusters. Nairobi falls under Cluster One and attracts the highest rates. Major towns like Mombasa, Kisumu and Nakuru are in Cluster Two, while the rest of the country is placed in Cluster Three.
According to SRC, officers working in Nairobi will benefit more from the house allowance increase because of the higher cost of living in the capital.
For example, senior officers in grade CSG4 will earn between Ksh185,690 and Ksh396,130 in basic salary, with house allowance going up to Ksh140,600 in Nairobi. Lower-grade officers such as CSG15 will earn between Ksh21,120 and Ksh26,250, with house allowance of up to Ksh4,500.
The SRC said the changes are meant to align public service pay with market conditions while following the law.
For now, civil servants can breathe easy. The government says the focus is on improving take-home pay not reducing it.
