City Hall allocates Sh175m for early retirement plan

City Hall has allocated Sh175 million towards roll out of early voluntary retirement of its aged staff as well as payment of terminal benefits owed to the county government’s retirees.

The amount is part of the second supplementary budget approved by the Nairobi County Assembly last week.

According to Nairobi County Medium Term Debt Strategy Paper for the financial year ending June 30, 2022, City Hall owes its retired staff Sh173 million in terminal benefits.

On the other hand, the county government has also been grappling with an aging workforce which mostly comprise unskilled personnel.

A 2017 report by the Nairobi County Public Service Board indicated that out of the over 14,000 workers in its payroll, 8,400 have bare minimum education and mostly perform unskilled labour.

Worryingly, only 240 workers were professionals namely engineers, architects and lawyers whereas over 70 per cent have bare minimum education with only primary education and are over 55 years.

Nairobi County Assembly Budget and Appropriations committee chairman Robert Mbatia said the allocation will see the Ann Kananu-led administration finally roll out of the much-touted early voluntary retirement scheme.

He said the scheme, targeting staff aged 50 years and above, had been delayed as the employees feared they will go home without any packages.

The staff Union, Kenya County Government Workers Union (KCGWU), had also been opposed to the plan for the same reason.