By Brian Ngugi, NAIROBI
Kenya
The Treasury is set to
stop funding the office of late President Daniel arap Moi in what will save
taxpayers hundreds of millions in retirement benefits offered to the former
head of State.
Late President Daniel arap Moi |
Moi, who died on February
4, had been receiving retirement benefits since leaving office in 2002,
including a fleet of luxury cars, a fully-furnished office and about 40
workers.
Now, the Treasury says
that the office will cease to exist, and some of the workers will be declared
redundant.
A source at the
Treasury who spoke on condition of anonymity said: “The law does not support
further payment linked to the Moi retirement benefits and we expect the office
to be wound up over the next three months.
The Treasury will not
have an allocation for the Moi office in the new financial year and his pension
pay will be stopped this month if the law is applied strictly.
Moi had been receiving
a hefty monthly pension equivalent to 80 percent of the salary paid to the
sitting president. He was also entitled to other perks like fuel, house and
entertainment allowances running into hundreds of thousands of shillings.
Running Moi’s office
and that of former president Mwai Kibaki will cost the public Sh243 million in
the year to June, with compensation to their own staff, excluding staff
seconded from the government, taking Sh126 million. Aides seconded from the
government, including press secretaries and security officers, are paid by the
parent ministry. Should the law be applied, the
Treasury estimates that
the cost of maintaining former presidents in retirement will fall by nearly
Sh250 million.
Moi came to power in
1978 after Jomo Kenyatta died. He remained in power until the end of 2002. He
held power for longer than any other Kenyan leader since independence and
critics saw him as an authoritarian ruler, while allies credited him for
maintaining stability in a region rocked by political and civil strife.
Retirement benefits for
former presidents have come under sharp focus, especially in the past couple of
years when allocations increased by large margins, even as the government
insisted it had put in place austerity measures to deal with a burgeoning
recurrent expenditure, including the wage bill.
Data from the Treasury
shows that Mr Moi’s and Mr Kibaki’s monthly pay and perks stood Sh74 million in
the year to June, up from Sh64 million in the same period a year earlier. If
awarded equally, their package for the current year assures each a monthly
payout of Sh3 million — an amount that is more than twice President Kenyatta’s
official salary of Sh1.44 million. It also puts the benefits of the two at par
with the salary and benefits of top chief executives of State-owned firms like
KenGen and Kenya Power.
In 2015, a High Court
judge stopped the government from paying allowances worth millions of shillings
to the two after finding that they were an unnecessary expense. The
Attorney-General has since appealed the decision, allowing the two to continue
enjoying their retirement emoluments.
Sections of the law
that the court nullified entitled Mr Kibaki and Moi to a Sh300,000 house
allowance per month, fuel (Sh200,000), entertainment (Sh200,000) and utilities
(Sh300,000). The law also entitled them to two personal assistants, four
secretaries, four messengers, four drivers and bodyguards, pushing the office
and home workers to 34 under the scheme funded from public coffers. They are
also entitled to four cars that are replaced every four years.
The government also
caters for workers at Mr Kibaki’s Nairobi office that was bought at Sh250
million three years ago, and Moi’s office at Kabarnet Gardens, off Ngong Road.
Mr Kibaki stepped down
as president in 2013 after serving two five-year terms.
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