Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) wins back medical allowances

Over 200,000 members of the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) are set to get back their medical allowances this month after obtaining orders restraining their employer from further deductions.

The orders came days after the Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers(KUPPET) won a court case barring the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) from deducting medical allowances from its members' pay to finance the Sh5.6 billion medical cover.

The scheme was envisaged to be funded by teachers' medical allowances which range from Sh900 to Sh4, 000.

Justice Hellen Wasilwa yesterday ordered TSC not to deduct the medical allowances for KNUT members.

"...is hereby restrained from further deducting, with a view of remitting to the interested party or in any manner further interfering with the medical allowances payable or salaries of the applicants members towards further implementation of the medical scheme pending inter-partes hearing of this application," ordered Justice Wasilwa.

The Employment and Labour Relations Court judge also barred the medical scheme administrator, AON, and TSC from implementing any agreement that touches on KNUT members' medical allowances.

"...hereby restrained from further enforcing or implementing the agreement between them by purporting to continue deducting medical allowances," said Wasilwa.

The judge certified the KNUT application as urgent and slated September 2 for the mention of the case.

KNUT, through its lawyer Hillary Sigei, had argued that TSC was about to close its payroll anytime now for August. "...the applicants' members stand to suffer great loss and damage if this honourable court does not certify the application as urgent and grant the applicants interim restraining orders as prayed," said KNUT.

The teachers union also argued that it had written to the TSC on August 3 asking for immediate suspension of the scheme owing to the selective implementation and mismanagement contrary to what was agreed on.

"...but the respondent has gone quiet compounding the apprehension that is aimed at further deducting the medical allowances from the members," said KNUT.

KNUT Secretary General Wilson Sossion said the union sought to terminate the allowance deduction because of "poor execution of the scheme due to internal sabotage".

"TSC acted in bad faith because this agreement was between them and AON. But they made it look like a unions' affair," he claimed.