Suleiman Mbatiah | Nation
Pyrethrum Board of Kenya workers protest what they termed unprocedural compulsory leave in Nakuru on February 23, 2012.
By FRANCIS MUREITHI fmureithi@ke.nationmedia.com
In Summary
- Regulator wants Pyrethrum Board of Kenya to involve retirees in the process of disposing of its assets
The Retirement Benefit Authority has stepped in
to try to save the pension scheme for workers at the troubled Pyrethrum
Board of Kenya.
The authority has asked the board to involve the retirees in the process of disposing of some its prime assets, including houses in the upmarket Milimani estate in Nakuru.
PBK plans to sell some of the houses and use the Sh300 million expected from the sale to settle its mounting debts.
RBA Chief Executive Officer Edward Odundo on March 8 met PBK managing director Isaac Mulagoli and Ms Elizabeth Kabiru, the chairperson of the Board of Trustees of Pyrethrum Board of Kenya Superannuation Pension Scheme, to chart course of action.
The meeting was also attended by representatives of the pensioners led by their chairmen Mr Robinson Kuria and Mr Harun Tinga.
During the meeting RBA reportedly told the trustees that the board should be held responsible for failing to comply with RBA rules and regulations.
A top RBA manager reportedly told the them that “paying a pensioner his or her dues is a human right and since you have failed to do so you ought to be in jail”.
Incidentally the pensioners are blaming the RBA for failing to crack the whip when their scheme was collapsing.
“If RBA had not slept on the job, the woes that PBK pensioners are undergoing today would be a thing of the past,” said Mr Tinga, who speaks for the group of retirees who left PBK in the 2009 retrenchment.
RBA, said Mr Tinga, failed to take action after the scheme failed to comply with RBA’s registration rules.
The scheme has been operational since 1991, but it was only officially registered in 2011.
RBA rules stipulate that when a sponsor fails to
register a pension scheme it is liable to a fine of Sh500,000 or
imprisonment of two years.
“If we were to apportion blame, RBA will take the lion’s share as it has been sleeping on the job,” said Mr Tinga.
But RBA has defended itself saying the scheme trustees have been giving remedial plans which they have never fulfilled.
“We have played our role, including writing to the permanent secretary of Agriculture Romanos Kiome last month to look for alternative ways to fund the scheme, but we have not received a reply,” said a senior RBA official, who did not want to be quoted as he is not authorised to speak to the press on behalf the RBA.
When it began showing signs of financial mismanagement, RBA appointed Kingsland Court and Pension Services, an interim administrator, to ensure the scheme complies with RBA rules and regulations.
The new administrator was supposed to be in office for one year but has been around for 12 years with little improvement in the scheme’s financial position.
When pyrethrum farming flourished in the 1970s and 1980s, the Pyrethrum Board of Kenya (PBK) workers’ pension scheme was one of the richest in the country with pensioners enjoying regular payouts.
In addition, the workers would get a hefty yearly bonus as PBK’s balance sheet contained billions of shillings worth of assets.
But today the scheme is in intensive care following years of mismanagement, corruption and theft of its property.
The more than 200 pensioners were last paid their monthly cheque in November last year and are now owed Sh9.2million in arrears.
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