Ruto urges PSC to align salaries of Kenyan scientists with regional scales

President William Ruto has asked the Public Service Commission (PSC) to harmonise the salaries of Kenyan scientists to align with those of their regional colleagues.

The President stated that the emigration of local scientists to foreign countries due to poor remuneration should not continue.

He directed Head of Public Service Felix Koskei to work with the PSC to address the pay disparity.

“We are not paying our scientists as we should.

‘‘Many of them are under the public service, and there is a need to re-evaluate their terms of service and salaries,” he said.

He added, “I will ask the Head of Public Service to identify a small team to assess what needs to be done so that we can match the remuneration of other scientists in our region.”

Ruto made the remarks during the unveiling of the Gede National Monument as a Unesco World Heritage Site at an event at the National Museums of Kenya in Nairobi yesterday.

Gede was inscribed as Kenya’s eighth Unesco World Heritage site in July 2024.

Other Unesco-inscribed sites in Kenya include the Lake Turkana National Parks, Mt Kenya National Park and Forest, Lamu Old Town, Fort Jesus, Lake Bogoria, Thimlich Ohinga Archaeological Site, and the Mijikenda Kaya Forests.

The also marked the 40th anniversary of the discovery of the Turkana Boy, the most complete skeleton of the earliest human ancestor ever recovered.

The function was attended by Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi, Tourism and Wildlife Cabinet Secretary Rebecca Miano, Kilifi Governor Gideon Mung’aro, Unesco East Africa Regional Director Louis Haxthausen, and United Kingdom High Commissioner to Kenya Neil Wigan.

President Ruto said the government would invest Sh1 billion to expand facilities at the Nairobi National Museum and Uhuru Gardens.

Additionally, he announced plans to fence off and protect sites belonging to the National Museums of Kenya across the country, which are vulnerable to land grabbers.

In line with this, the government will partner with Kilifi County to fence the Gede National Monument.

During the function, Wigan handed over digital material from the colonial era, kept in the British Archives, to the Kenya National Archives.

The material, which dates from 1907 to 1968, consists of 2,658 files and over 300,000 images.

President Ruto welcomed the gesture, saying it “consolidates the relationship between Kenya and the UK.”

He committed that the government would continue investing in the tourism sector, which earned Sh352 billion last year and attracted 2.1 million visitors.[