County leaders seek to manage pension schemes

Council of Governors Chairman Peter Munya addresses journalists at Delta House in Nairobi on January 7, 2016. Mr Munya has said that pension schemes for county staff should not be managed by the national government. PHOTO | ROBERT NGUGI | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • The county boss said governors agreed on joining the Local Authority Pension Trust, which has since been changed to County Pension Scheme Financial Services.

Governors have said it will be unconstitutional for the national government to snatch away their mandate of running pension schemes for county workers.

“Letting the national government manage our employees’ pensions will be a breach of the constitutional provisions that require us to be autonomous,” said Council of Governors (CoG) Chairman Peter Munya on Tuesday.

Mr Munya, who is also the Meru governor, spoke during the close of a three-day County Public Service Board caucus meeting in Meru Town.

The county boss said governors agreed on joining the Local Authority Pension Trust, which has since been changed to County Pension Scheme Financial Services.

“That agreement is official. It was affirmed. Counties have the biggest number of employees and so controlling all that money is attractive in very many ways. We will have an intergovernmental summit at the end of this month or early February, and we will convey these concerns so that the issue is resolved once and for all,” he said.

On proposals to lay off workers in counties to reduce the wage bill, Mr Munya said no one would lose their jobs.

Last year, a report by the Intergovernmental Steering Committee for Capacity Assessment and Rationalisation of the Public Service recommended that some workers be sent home.

But Mr Munya said retrenchment is not the right solution to reducing the wage bill.

“The issue of numbers is a dicey one. Workers too have rights that must be respected. The best we can do is to retrain and repost them ,” he said.