Retiring public servants will get their pension within 90 days if a plan by the Pensions Department in Treasury and Planning ministry succeeds.

Already, the department has deployed its officers to the Teachers Service Commission and Vigilance House to help process pension for retiring teachers and police officers.

The same will be replicated at the headquarters of all ministries.

This, Treasury officials said, will help eliminate cartels that have been swindling retirees of their hard-earned money in the guise that they (cartels) could hasten the process.

Principal Pensions officers Douglas Asanyo and Anna Kitole, at the same time, dismissed claims that there were cartels in the Pensions Department, noting that many retiring public servants fell in the hands of fraudsters due to ignorance.

Superannuation scheme

The two were speaking in Malindi on Wednesday during a sensitisation workshop for public servants on the Public Service Superannuation Scheme (PSSS). The PSSS is a contributory pension scheme to which members contribute 7.5 per cent of their basic salaries while their employers contribute 15 per cent.

Asanyo said there had been delays in the processing of pension under the old scheme, but also blamed retirees for failure to submit the necessary documents for processing in time.

“We have a service charter that says, upon a member’s exit, their benefits are paid within 90 days. We are looking forward to a time when a member will exit from a salary to payment of pension the next month without a break in earnings,” he said.

He noted that the Head of Public Service had instructed that public service members be issued with retirement notices a year before so that they can plan accordingly.

Ms Kitole said various reforms were taking place in the pensions department; while Magarini Deputy County Commissioner John Thiong’o advised public servants to prepare for retirement the very first day they join the service.