The intervention of the Retirement Benefits Authority (RBA) in the dispute between 115 former employees of the Kenyatta National Referral Hospital (KNH) and the trustees of their pension scheme over unpaid dues is laudable.
The pension schemes regulator has directed the trustees to comply with a tribunal judgment in April 2021 and review the benefits after the former employees who retired between 2011 and 2017 complained about the formula used to determine the amounts due to them.
Hopefully, the decision taken by the RBA in the KNH matter sends a strong message to other pension schemes denying retirees what is rightfully theirs that the regulator is watching.
Similar regulatory firmness is needed in dealing with the scourge of unremitted pension deductions by public institutions that continues to subject retirees to a life of misery.
Retirees facing financial woes are often reduced to depending on relatives for expenses such as medical bills.
Data from the Parliamentary Budget Office (BPO), a think tank that advises MPs and its committees on fiscal matters, showed that State corporations and agencies owed pensioners more than Sh21 billion as of December 2022.
A report by Allianz, an international financial services provider, in May showed that Kenya’s pension system was not providing an adequate standard of living in old age.
The new administration of President William Ruto has blamed the age-old poverty on low pension savings and recently increased monthly contributions by workers to the National Social Security Fund substantially.
But not much will change if flaws in the pension system such as those that allow public institutions to get away with unremitted deductions aren’t addressed.
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Note: The results are not exact but very close to the actual.
