The Star (Kenya)

Uhuru re­jects bid to hand re­tired MPS Sh100,000 monthly pen­sion

- MOSES ODHIAMBO/ U.S. News · Politics · Metropolitan Police Service · National Assembly of South Korea · Uhuru Kenyatta

Pres­i­dent Uhuru Keny­atta on Thurs­day dealt a blow to hun­dreds of for­mer MPS when he re­jected a bid by Par­lia­ment to award re­tired law­mak­ers a life­time pen­sion.

The Pres­i­dent de­clined to assent to the Par­lia­men­tary Pen­sions (Amend­ment) Bill, 2019 spon­sored by Mi­nor­ity leader John Mbadi.

Mbadi’s bill sought to fi­nance an en­hanced pen­sion scheme for MPS who served be­tween 1984 and 2001.

The Na­tional As­sem­bly on Au­gust 4 voted to amend the re­tire­ment ben­e­fits law to award ex-law­mak­ers a gra­tu­ity and monthly pen­sion for life.

The monthly pen­sion for the more than 375 for­mer MPS was to rise me­te­or­i­cally from the cur­rent low of Sh2,000 to as much as Sh100,000 monthly.

But Pres­i­dent Keny­atta said there are chal­lenges with im­ple­ment­ing the pro­posal as the mem­bers were not con­tribut­ing to pen­sion at that rate.

He said mem­bers’ pen­sions are cal­cu­lated ac­cord­ing to con­tri­bu­tions paid to the scheme dur­ing their par­lia­men­tary term.

“The pro­posed amend­ment fails to pro­vide for such cal­cu­la­tion and makes no ref­er­ence to the mem­bers’ con­tri­bu­tions,” Uhuru said.

The Pres­i­dent fur­ther posited that the Bill over­looked the man­date of the Salaries and Re­mu­ner­a­tion Com­mis­sion un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion. The SRC had re­jected the bid to pay for­mer MPS the perks with the Pres­i­dent re­it­er­at­ing it was the com­mis­sions’ place to set and re­view ben­e­fits for all state of­fi­cers in­clud­ing MPS.

Pres­i­dent Keny­atta fur­ther said the pen­sion pay­ment would cost an av­er­age of Sh444 mil­lion an­nu­ally and risked stag­ing sim­i­lar de­mands by other re­tired pub­lic of­fi­cers. “The re­sul­tant rip­ple ef­fect is un­af­ford­able and fis­cally un­sus­tain­able,” he said. He has thus rec­om­mended to the Na­tional As­sem­bly to delete the pro­posed amend­ment. To over­turn the Pres­i­dent’s pro­posal, the Na­tional As­sem­bly would be re­quired to muster a quo­rum of 233 mem­bers.

An amend­ment whose ef­fect over­rides the Pres­i­dent’s reser­va­tions or negates his pro­posed text would re­quire two-thirds vot­ing thresh­old, Mu­turi said in an ear­lier rul­ing.

?? /PSCU ?? Pres­i­dent Uhuru Keny­atta
/PSCU Pres­i­dent Uhuru Keny­atta

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Kenya