By KARANJA NJOROGE
Retired teachers have demanded the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) makes public a list of beneficiaries of a pending lump sum pension.
The teachers, who went to court and won a case against the commission and were awarded lump sum retirement benefits, said details of beneficiaries should be published in the media to clear the air.
Following the court ruling, the teachers are seeking unpaid lump sum of Sh6.4 billion and a backdated and accrued pension of Sh28.5 billion.
"Being custodians of the records of all the teachers, TSC should publish the details of all the beneficiaries of the 534 gazette notice of 11 November 1997," vice chairman of the retired teachers group David Kimani said during a meeting in Nakuru. |
Retired teachers met in Nakuru and said they would push TSC to pay them their pending lump sum pension. [PHOTO: BONIFACE THUKU/STANDARD] |
The teachers are disputing the numbers of supposed beneficiaries given by TSC.
"Although TSC, in a media advertisement, claims there were 31,087 beneficiaries, we wish to confirm that our records indicate those to benefit are 50,338," they claimed.
The meeting, which brought together more than 400 retired teachers, vowed to use all means to compel TSC to pay the outstanding dues.
Kimani accused TSC of mischief and demanded their lawyer be involved in every stage of calculations and interpretation of the 1997 salary award and implementation.
"The involvement of our lawyer is important to avoid a situation where retirees are lumped together as having worked for 300 months only, hence denying them their rightful and lawful claims," he added.
They said they had learnt that TSC intends to leave out some salary arrears borne out of annual increments and salary adjustments.
The group secretary Gidraf Kimata said they have mandated their lawyer to seek for a freeze and auction of TSC properties if it fails to honour the court ruling.
The teachers said that should a scheduled meeting with TSC next week fail to resolve the row, they would call for demonstrations countrywide.
TSC was ordered to pay the teachers who retired after the 1997 pay hike deal benefits, based on the entire salary increment agreement.
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The High Court ordered that future pension payments for the retirees be based on the entire salary increment of 1997.
The commission had appealed against the ruling by the High Court but the Court of Appeal dismissed the case last December.
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