We benefit more with pensioners who are financially independent

NAIROBI: An obscure article appeared recently in one daily newspaper indicating that the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) had given the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) a 30-day ultimatum to pay retired teachers Sh42.3 billion worth of pension money owed to them since 1997. The 52,000 teachers affected in this financial injustice are not alone. Many pensioners suffer without being heard; even former Vice Presidents!

The politics of “pension injustice” has been thriving in Kenya for a long time. It flourishes under the auspices of a much bigger captain of injustice; impunity. I remember in the Seventh Parliament when I was chairman of the Public Investments Committee coming across the case of the then Kenya Posts and Telecommunications Corporation (KPTC) raiding the pension fund of its workers on the eve of its privatisation. The workers went home without a secure future. The management of KPTC did not only get absorbed into the new outfits that were born after privatisation but were obviously smiling all the way to the bank with workers’ pensions in their pockets.