The Nairobi County Government retirees can now breathe easy after City Hall allocated funds to clear their terminal benefits.
The money is part of the Sh175 million allocated in the roll-out of early voluntary retirement for the county’s aged staff.
It is part of the second supplementary budget approved by the Nairobi County Assembly last week.
City Hall owes its retired staff Sh173 million in terminal benefits.
This is according to Nairobi County Medium Term Debt Strategy Paper for the financial year ending June 30, 2022.
The implementation of the early retirement scheme targeting staffers aged 50 and above will help City Hall deal with the problem of its aging workforce that mostly comprises unskilled personnel.
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Kahawa Tungu understands that the rollout of the program was delayed due to lack of a budget.
Most of the aged staffers had fears that the employer wouldn’t be able to clear their benefits.
A report released by the Nairobi County Public Service Board in 2017 revealed that out of the more than 14,000 workers in its payroll, 8,400 had bare minimum education and mostly performed unskilled labour.
According to the report, only 240 workers were professionals namely engineers, architects, and lawyers.
Over 70 percent of the workforce had only primary education and were aged above 55.
Following the allocation of the funds, Nairobi County Assembly Budget and Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Mbatia said City Hall is ready to implement the program.
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“Having money allocated for the retirees’ benefits, I believe we can ably roll out the early voluntary retirement. It has not been forthcoming because staff were afraid that in the event they retire, they will go home without any packages, but having cleared this, we will now be able to bring in fresh blood,” said Mbatia.
According to a biometric report released by City Hall in 2019, half of its employees are over 50 years.
The report revealed that out of the 11, 603 City Hall workers 5, 709 are aged 50 years and above, with 19 above the retirement age of 60 years.
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