By Stanley Ongwae
Migori, Kenya: Teachers in Migori County have vowed to reject the proposed contribution to the revamped National Social Security Fund (NSSF) scheme claiming it is a new way of fleecing them of their benefits.
Addressing teachers during an annual general meeting of the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) Rongo sub branch, the National Deputy Secretary General of the union, Charles Katege, said teachers cannot be forced to join the scheme because they are employed on permanent basis and NSSF is therefore irrelevant to them.
“NSSF is meant to serve workers who are on temporary basis. For that reason, we will not accept any contribution towards this new scheme from our members because they are already contributing for their pension scheme,” he said.
Lacks capacity
Katege asked the Government to recruit 40,000 more teachers to address the staffing crisis in schools.
He also criticised the Government for allowing county governments to recruit early childhood development teachers instead of leaving the responsibility with the Teachers Service Commission (TSC). “The Office of the Governor lacks capacity to shop for teachers. It is for this reason, we are telling the Government to revert this responsibility to the TSC,” he said.
