KENYA
Kenya’s Public Servants will have 7.5 per cent of their salaries deducted from October as their contribution to a new pension scheme, the Treasury has announced.
The deduction lowers the benefit of a pay increase awarded in July 2017.
Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Rotich (pictured) told Parliament the pension scheme was essential if Kenya was to successfully tackle the problem of an ageing Government workforce.
PS employees currently do not contribute to their pensions, with the cost expected to rise to KES86.2 billion (A$1.1 billion) by the middle of the year.
Part of the problem has been the Government’s failure to push through necessary reforms, including kickstarting the long-awaited contributory pension scheme.
PS employees were initially to contribute 2 per cent of their monthly salary to the scheme in the first year, 5 per cent in the second and 7.5 per cent from the third year.
However, this staggering has now been abandoned.
The Government will match employee contributions.
The KES17.9 billion (A$2.4 million) fund that was meant to start the scheme last year was diverted to settling former teachers’ retirement arrears following a court order that resulted in Director of Pensions, Shem Nyakutu being jailed after delaying paying the tutors.
In a separate development, Principal Secretary of the Public Service, Lilian Mbogo and a number of top Ministry officials will be questioned by Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee over the loss of KES9 billion (A$1.2 million) from the National Youth Service (NYS).
The NYS is now within the Ministry of Public Service, Youth and Gender Affairs, after being transferred from the Ministry of Devolution in 2015.
The Ministry was then headed by Anne Waiguru, who resigned after a scandal involving the loss of KES791 million (A$105,000).
NYS officials are alleged to have set up dummy companies that were paid for non-existent services, forged tender documents and exploited loopholes in the financial management system.
Nairobi, 15 May 2018
