Retired teachers dispute Treasury’s claim on dues
TSC boss Nancy Macharia (left) appears with Legal Director Cavin Anyuor before the Senate Committee on Education over payment of pensions for retired teachers at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre in Nairobi on May 4, 2023.
The fight by thousands of retired teachers seeking Sh43.2 billion shillings in retirement benefits and salary arrears has taken a new twist.
Days after National Treasury Cabinet Secretary Njuguna Ndung’u told the Senate Education committee that the government has disbursed Sh16.08 billion to pay them, the retirees have denied knowledge of the cash.
Prof Ndung’u had said that Treasury had received 23,487 revised claims from the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) for the retirees.
Representatives of the 52,000 retired teachers, who spoke in Nakuru City yesterday, termed the claims as misleading to the beneficiaries and an affront to the Judiciary, which has been handling the matter since 2010.
Pending in court
In a press statement that was read by Mr Gidraff Kimatta, the retirees revealed that the case is still pending in court after the Ministry of Education disputed the figures and certain components of the judgement.
He said that TSC and the Pensions Department have continued to disregard court orders directing them to pay the cash.
“We would like to clearly state that the records delivered to us through our lawyer indicate that only 7,000 retired teachers have received their enhanced pension. However, even those who have received their dues have been grossly underpaid due to the fact that the TSC has never involved us in the calculation as ordered by the Court of Appeal, which delivered the judgement in Nakuru on October 12, 2010,” stated Mr Kimatta.
The retired teachers regretted that the dispute has dragged on in courts for nearly three decades, with various government offices trading blame over the lack of compliance with court orders.
