upepo
Elder Lister
Members of Parliament have given Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu six months to probe millions of shillings that Kenya is still paying British pensioners who left the country six decades ago. The National Treasury spent Sh150 million to pay these pensioners in the 2022/2023 financial year and has budgeted a further Sh42 million to pay the retirees in the 2023/2024 financial year. The annual pension bill for the retirees, born between 1930 and 1940, has remained at Sh150 million and auditors now question whether Treasury could be paying ghost beneficiaries given that there is no full disclosure as to the identity of the beneficiaries.
The payments are enshrined in law through the Widows and Orphans Act, the Asian Widows and Orphans Act, and the Asian Officers Pensions Act, which provide for contributory schemes for the Europeans and Asians through crown Agents. But the National Assembly’s Public Debt and Privatization Committee now wants Ms Gathungu to conduct a special audit on the millions of shillings that Kenya has been paying these colonial pensioners annually since 1963.
