MP Tables Motion To Reduce Mandatory Retirement Age To 50 Years.

A member of the national assembly, Charles Njagua, has tabled a Private motion to seek to reduce the retirement age from 60 to 50 for all civil servants.

The Starehe MP’s motion was listed for debate on Tuesday, September 11 but was not reached for discussion by the parliament.

However, if the MPs decide to back the motion, it would mean that more than 25,000 civil servants are forced to down their tools.

This is because the Public Service Commission (PSC) in their 2016 report said that about 25,000 civil servants are above 50 years of age.

Three years later, the number of civil servants above 50 years is bound to have increased, and if MPs support the motion more than 31 percent of civil servants will go home earlier than they had expected.

The impending results of the move would disrupt normal household routine and the retirement plans of the affected individuals and subject the government to financial strains.

In 2009, the government raised the mandatory retirement age from 55 to 60 as it was struggling to cope with the piling pension bill.

Mr. Njagua argues that the reason for tabling that motion was because of the unemployment rate in the country, affecting the youth, who make the largest percentage of Kenya’s population.

About 75 percent of the country’s population is made up of people below 35 years of age, and most are unemployed, as only about 70,000 educated and skilled youth out of the 800,000 released to the job market annually manage to get employed.

A Human Resource Audit prepared by the Public Service Commission (PSC)in 2016 showed that most civil servants are over 40 years of age. Those holding managerial positions were found to be above 46 years both in the national government and county governments.

From the audit, it was found out that at least 399 civil servants were above 60 but still held their positions at work. On that, the PSC told parliaments that it had been forced to retain workers due to succession gaps at top levels.