It’s high time the incumbent government, policy designers, legislators, local researchers and other players urgently addressed the ever-growing concern over delays of teacher retiree benefits as a matter of urgency.
Renewed plans by the Kenya Kwanza ruling class to speed up the processing of tutors gratuity/pensions in a span of within four to five months is most welcome.
The move is designed to relieve tutors of past agonies of staying over two years without monthly pay-cum-lump sum pension benefits amid tough socio-economic times ranging from physical and psychological to economic and health distress due to community demands.
Past assurances to the teaching fraternity and the public at large on prompt payment of retirees perks is quite heartening. Latest assurance attributed to the Education CS Ezekiel Machogu that once a tutor retires, his or her file should be urgently submitted and processed at the Pensions Department at National Treasury without further ado is indeed good tidings to all retirees who have in the past been tormented and traumatized in quest for the benefits in futility.
Machogu, upon appearing before the Senate on August 2023, reiterated that his ministry and the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) are changing tack in seeing to it that retirees’ files are speedily forwarded to Pensions Department at the National Treasury for action.
The CS elaborated that the processing of dues should take between four to five months to be completed as opposed to the status quo in which tutors wait for over two years, unlike their civil service counterparts whose pension / gratuity takes less than three month to mature.
Tutors’ sudden changed lifestyle from salaried to salary-less for over two years has raised more philosophical questions than answers as education players inter alia raise the accusing finger at the Pensions Department at National Treasury over grave managerial gaps. Worse still is the runaway inflation pressures that have forced poor retirees to seek part-time jobs to cover costs of food and medical expenses.
Embu Senator Alexander Mundigi is on record questioning why teacher retirees take more than two years to access their pension dues, noting that retirees in public service take three months to get their pensions.
The Senate sought to reverse the long wait. TSC CEO Dr Nancy Njeri Macharia on her part argued that teachers are given one year notice by the commission in order to prepare their documents for payments in readiness to exit the teaching service.
Dr Macharia, who joined TSC in 2014, exonerated TSC on delayed payment for 23,487 retires between 1998-2003, arguing that TSC completed all the paper work and submitted to the National Treasury on time.
In 2009, Kenya retirement age of 55 years was increased to 60.
Existing analysis shows that more than 82 per cent of senior citizens are working for basic needs and medical care amid financial struggles, raising concerns about the adequacy of pension payouts and coverage of retirement benefits.
The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) quarterly jobs report shows that many of the retirees working were doing so to meet basic needs and medical care. Analysts say the relatively low number of Kenyans saving for pension and the value of payouts at retirement has compelled many retirees or those approaching the legal retirement age of 60 to continue working to meet social-economic pressures beyond their control.
The situation has been aggravated by the fact that retirees are left with unfinished socio-economic projects in urban centres.
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