Retired teachers’ pay day nears as State snubs ongoing strike

By Augustine Oduor

Kenya: The Government has remained silent on the fate of striking teachers even as learning in public schools remains paralysed for the third day running.

Instead, the teachers’ employer (TSC) met Attorney General Githu Muigai and Director of Pensions Ann Mugo to discuss payment of long-standing retired teachers’ benefits.

Cabinet secretaries Jacob Kaimenyi (Education) and Kazungu Kambi (Labour) were holed up in a meeting at State House and subsequent swearing-in of principal secretaries.

President Uhuru Kenyatta also steered clear of any talks related to teachers’ industrial action when he addressed the Press.

Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) national chairman Wilson Sossion said silence could be interpreted to mean the Government does not care about the cost of the strike on the education sector.

“For as long as they keep quiet, the strike will proceed,” he said. He, however, said the retired teachers’ case was a result of legal notice 534 of 1997 that the State had disowned. “These teachers went to court to be paid on the basis of benefits negotiated and gazetted in 1997 and won the case. This means we have a legal document,” he said.

Some 52,000 teachers are pushing the Government to release Sh16.7 billion to pay their dues after a successful court battle in Nakuru. He said the union will send a strong legal representation to the industrial court today. The union said it had contracted the services of a top law firm to fight it out with the State when they appear before the court today.

Sossion said Oraro and Company advocates will argue their case today. The law firm successfully represented former Cabinet minister Henry Kosgey at the International Criminal Court.

Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers also said they would attend the court session slated for today. “We want to know what wrong we have committed because our strike is legal,” said the secretary Edward Obwocha.

Reports indicate that an earlier meeting between Deputy President William Ruto, Teachers Service Commission (TSC) and Muigai resolved retired teacher’s payments must be fast-tracked. And Thursday, TSC secretary Gabriel Lengoiboni and other senior officials met to discuss bottlenecks standing in the way of settling these payments.