The Supreme
Court has upheld a Court of Appeal ruling directing the teachers' employer to
pay them a 50-60pc pay raise until its appeal challenging the increment is heard
and determined.
The top court
in the land on Monday declined to grant the Teachers Service Commission's
request to suspend the Court of Appeal order.
In their
ruling, judges Willy Mutunga, Kalpana Rawal, Jackton Ojwang, Mohamed Ibrahim
and Smokin Wanjala said they had no jurisdiction to entertain the TSC
application.
The pay raise
orders, they said, were issued by the Court of Appeal that had exercised its
powers under the law.
Speaking
outside the Supreme Court, Knut secretary general Wilson Sossion condemned the
Teachers Service Commission for paying salaries early, to evade the directive.
Sossion said
TSC did an "abnormal thing" not to include the pay raise in the
teachers' August salaries.
"We wonder where miracles come from. TSC
should recall with immediate effect the payroll and pay teachers the money. We
shall give more details on Tuesday," he said.
"We want
the teachers to remain united. The war has just began now that we have been
given a clean bill, we cannot be divided forever."
The TSC moved
to the highest court after the Court of Appeal on July 23 ordered the
commission to pay the increment to the 288,000 teachers.
Appellate
judges Mohammed Warsame, Sankale Kantai and Jamila Mohamed said if the
commission failed to pay the new salaries by end of August, the appeal will
automatically stand dismissed.
They had
threatened to go on strike in September if the government does not pay the
increase amounting to about Sh12.3 billion.
Both the
Education CS Jacob Kaimenyi and Treasury CS Henry Rotich have maintained the
government has not budgeted the salary increase.
Photo credit: Nation Media Group
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