Written By Mary Mumbua 📝
The Treasury is ready to discontinue supporting the late President Mwai Kibaki’s office, saving taxpayers hundreds of millions of shillings in retirement benefits.
Since leaving office in 2013, Mr Kibaki had been enjoying retirement benefits, including a fleet of luxury automobiles, a fully-furnished office, and roughly 40 workers.
The Treasury Department has announced that the office would close and that some employees will be made redundant, with those on secondment reabsorbed in ministries and other organizations.
Mr Kibaki received an annual pension of Sh34.2 million, or Sh2.85 per month, which is comparable to the income and benefits of top State-owned company executives.
In the fiscal year that ended in June, his office cost taxpayers Sh98.6 million, and the Treasury has set aside Sh101.1 million for the fiscal year that begins on July 1.
“The law demands that payment linked to the Kibaki’s retirement benefits be withdrawn upon death and we expect the office to be wound up over the next three months,” said a source at the Treasury, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Aides seconded from the government, including press secretaries and security officers, are paid by the parent ministry.
In Mr Kibaki’s office Ngari Gituku, a long-serving civil servant, served as the late president’s private secretary.
Other aides such as Stanley Murage, who served as the policy and programmes adviser, will exit as the office gets wound up. Mr Murage was Mr Kibaki’s only formal policy adviser during his tenure as head of state.
The withdrawal of funding for the two offices means that Kenya will for the first time since 2002 not have a budget to cater for the workplace of retired presidents.
The Treasury omitted allocations for
President Uhuru Kenyatta’s retirement office and staff from the budget for the year starting July, another pointer to the Head of State’s quest to remain active in party politics.
The estimated Sh100 million allocation would have catered for a fully furnished office for the retired president, aides, limousines and other perks such as house, fuel and entertainment allowances.
It is understood that the Treasury is avoiding breaching sections of the law that bars a retired president from holding office in a political party six months after retirement.
Mr Kibaki’s 2002 election ended 40 years of one-party rule since independence when Mr Moi retired and he served for two terms to 2013.
He is credited with reviving Kenya’s then-ailing economy, but his tenure was marred by deadly violence that killed more than 1,200 Kenyans following his disputed re-election in December 2007.
He also struggled to tackle widespread corruption as Kenya’s third president
In 2015, a High Court judge stopped the government from paying allowances worth millions of shillings to Mr Kibaki and Mr Moi after finding that they were an unnecessary expense.
The ruling was overturned by the Attorney-General, allowing the two to keep their retirement benefits.
Mr Kibaki and Mr Moi were entitled to a Sh300,000 monthly home allowance, gas (Sh200,000), entertainment (Sh200,000), and utilities (Sh200,000) under sections of the law that the court struck down (Sh300,000).
The law also gave them two personal assistants, four secretaries, four messengers, four drivers, and four bodyguards, bringing the total number of office and home personnel to 34.
They were also given four cars, which they had to replace every four years.
