Fair's fair.

Fair's fair. You told them to sue and sue they did.

The President of Kenya earns a salary that is the equivalent of what Michael Joseph took home when he shepherded Safaricom to Top Dog status in mobile telephony. Many of us might have very strong feelings about the quality of its services, but unless we have not been paying attention, Safaricom has protected its brand, expanded its products, increased its profitability and taken care of its shareholders and creditors. The Government of Kenya, on the other hand, has not, to put it mildly. The current CEO of Safaricom deserves the multi-million shilling salary and bonus cheques he gets annually; the CEO of Kenya most likely does not.

Which brings us to teachers and the billion-shillings award handed them by the Industrial Court. It is immoral to award double-digit increases to an arm of the government that has proven to be value for our money while key sectors continue to be treated like second class citizens. Teachers, nurses, doctors and police deserve the same kind of largesse that Cabinet Secretaries, Principal Secretaries, parastatal bosses, Deputy Presidents and Presidents receive from the Consolidated Fund. The argument that the Government cannot afford it because their numbers are so large may be accurate but it is a very poor foundation for public policy.

The rationale behind the CEO-level pay-and-perks for the senior echelons of the public service is that it "motivates" them to perform; the same rationale should apply to critical sectors of the public service that have a greater than normal impact on the economy and quality of life. Alternatively, when austerity is demanded of the teachers of Kenya, there is absolutely no justification for the splurge that the senior echelons enjoy.

The Government of Kenya and the Teachers' Service Commission have been playing cat-and-mouse with teachers since 1997 over their salaries. It is a game that has seen numerous instances of industrial action by teachers, affecting the quality of learning for millions of children. The same has been the case with nurses and doctors.  In the same period, the salaries and other benefits enjoyed by senior members of the national Executive, the same ones livid with the ruling of the Industrial Court, have multiplied several times. So too have those of the members of the legislature and the judiciary. It seems that these small cabals can keep dipping their fingers deeper into the Consolidated Fund but not those who do the heavy lifting.

The national Executive will no doubt challenge the ruling of the Industrial Court in the appeal courts, and there is more than an even chance that the national Executive will prevail. What is equally without doubt is that the "national dialogue" on the "huge wage bill" will focus almost entirely on why we can't raise teachers' salaries by between 50% and 60% and not why we can't reduce the salaries of the senior echelons of the public service by between 50% and 60% to partly pay for the increase that the teachers, nurses, doctors and policemen richly deserve.

You told them to sue. They did. They won. Time to put up or shut up.