Claris Ogangah
The Employment Act does not have a provision for retirement age.
The document that provides for retirement age is the Pensions Act, which is Chapter 189 of the laws of Kenya.
The Pensions Act provides that a public officer or a Government employee should retire any time after attaining age 50 years, though the recognised age for retirement, especially for civil and public servants, is 55 years.
This age has been adopted by most organisations as the recognised age.
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However different companies, organisations and institutions have different provisions for the age of retirement and therefore when working for a private company, then the company has discretion to impose the age limit for its employees, which could be between 50 to 74 years, depending on your line of work.
Judges, though public servants, hold constitutional offices and fall in the category of employees who retire at 74 years.
It is therefore important you read what your employment contract states and if there is no provision in your contract then you need to speak to your human resources department and look at the human resources policy.
From this, you will know the company’s position on retirement age.
You may also have to peruse the retirement benefit scheme that your employer has for its employees and find out what it says about retirement age.
If all the above documents provide for 50 years then you may have to proceed on retirement as advised, unless the company agrees to extend the period.
However, if the company has no policy on retirement, then you can rely on the recognised retirement age as provided in the Pension Act and inquire why you have been retired early.
The company or organisation you are working for may have, however, had a practice of retiring its employees at the age of 50 years.
If this is so, then you as an employee may also be bound by this practice.
The bottom line is that it is very important to have a contract which is clearly understood by both the employer and employee before any of them sign so that all issues of concern are addressed before the contract is signed.
