TSC throws blame to treasury over delayed payment of 23,487 retirees
TSC throws blame to treasury over delayed payment of 23,487 retirees. The Teachers Service Commission has criticized the National Treasury for failing to compensate 23,487 instructors who left the field between 1998 and 2003.
According to TSC CEO Nancy Macharia, the commission has finished all the documentation and submitted it to the Treasury for payment.
According to Macharia, the commission completed all the required paperwork for the 23,487 claims in accordance with the law and sent it to the National Treasury for payment.
The TSC boss appeared before the Senate Education Committee to provide an explanation for the outrageous delays in paying the retiring teachers.
The TSC allegedly failed to pay retirees after they had been out of the service for about 20 years, according to a petition filed by a former teacher.
The instructors who were affected by a 1997 agreement between the employer and the Kenya National Union of instructors, KNUT, did not get higher compensation.
The arrangement was to be put into effect gradually, but because to a cash shortage that the government was going through at the time, the lot retired before they could benefit from one of the phases.
“I want to remove the misconception that TSC is in charge of pension payments here. That is untrue. Documentation must be prepared by the commission and sent to the director of pensions.
Under the chairmanship of Murangá Senator Joe Nyutu, Macharia testified before the committee that the impacted pensioners are receiving a regular pension. However, the Treasury has yet to pay them the extra money they were entitled to when they were in the military.
She went on to say that a new agreement was signed as legislative supplement number 10 of 2003, which updated the salary agreement from 1997. “The committee should take note of this,” she remarked.
The government was compelled to make the payment after the teachers successfully sued for greater pension benefits and received a favorable decision.
The teachers won their legal challenges in 2015, taking them all the way to the Supreme Court from the High Court.
After pursuing all legal remedies, the government promised to fully abide with the ruling and begin processing the pension applications for the teachers who are entitled to the same benefits, according to Macharia.
The committee made the decision to call Treasury CS Njunguna Ndung to explain the nonpayment, and when they questioned him about why certain retirees were waiting longer than usual to collect their regular pension, they placed the TSC head on the spot.
Since I’ve been visiting TSC so frequently, some people think I work there. Why do you pay pensions and gratuities to retirees so slowly? At Taita Taveta, Senator Johannes Mwaruma took pictures.
The CEO cited a multitude of reasons why payments were late.
She spoke of the challenges in getting retirees to submit the required paperwork so that the Treasury could handle the reimbursements.
She said, “Families occasionally fight over who gets the pension, especially after the retirees have passed away.”
According to Macharia, the commission’s head of human resource management and development Julius Olayo offered retirees one notice to gather the required documentation for compensation.
“We mention several conditions in the notice, including bank details so they can be lodged.
However, some retirees and beneficiaries take a time to submit the required documents for processing so that the money can be released.