State increases monthly pension for former First Lady Mama Ngina Kenyatta
State increases monthly pension for former First Lady Mama Ngina Kenyatta to Sh679,800 despite cash crunch
State increases monthly pension for former First Lady Mama Ngina Kenyatta to Sh679,800 despite cash crunch.
Former First Lady Mama Ngina Kenyatta’s State pension has been increased to Sh679,800 monthly amid renewed scrutiny over her family’s multibillion-shilling wealth.
According to Treasury documents, Mama Ngina’s pension was raised from Sh568,218 that she earned in 2018 at taxpayers’ expense for being the spouse of Kenya’s first president, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, who died in 1978.
A major complaint about the extravagant retirement perks given to State officials and prominent figures like Mama Ngina is that they left service with excessive riches, including prime houses worth billions of shillings and significant company holdings.
The statute that stipulates a spouse of a sitting or retired president will get 40% of the existing salary paid to the incumbent Head of State in the event of their husband’s passing is what is related to the former First Lady’s State payment.
However, according to some lawyers, the payout is in violation of the Presidential Retirement Benefits Act, which went into effect in January 2003.
They contend that the rule cannot be enforced retroactively and suggest that it should only apply to a president’s spouse who is either a serving or former president who died after 2003.
Mama Ngina’s personal wealth remains unknown, but the Kenyattas are considered one of Africa’s wealthiest families, with its vast business interests spanning transport, insurance, hotels, farming, land ownership, and media in Kenya.
The Kenyatta family’s vast business empire is associated with well-known commercial brands and blue chip companies, including Brookside Dairies and NCBA Group.
The family’s wealth was recently in the spotlight after President William Ruto’s political allies called for a probe of the Kenyattas’ businesses tax records, amid claims they received waivers.
They also wanted counties to audit land rates paid by the Kenyattas on thousands of acres they own across the country.
A huge leak of the financial dealings of the rich, dubbed Pandora papers, revealed in 2021 that the Kenyattas secretly owned a network of 13 offshore companies for decades.
The Kenyattas’ offshore investments had a company with stocks and bonds worth $30m and a secret foundation set up in 2003 in Panama naming Mama Ngina as the first benefactor and Uhuru as the second benefactor, who would inherit it after her death.
The Kenyatta family matriarch started receiving the State-backed monthly payment before her son, Uhuru, became President in 2013, officials at the Treasury said.
At 40 percent of the sitting president’s salary, Mama Ngina is entitled to a KSh576,000 monthly pay, which rises to Sh679,800 after factoring in other benefits and increases that happen every two years.
“Spouse benefits upon the death of a serving President or of a retired President who is in receipt of or who is entitled to a pension under this Act, his surviving spouse shall be entitled to benefits amounting to fifty percent of such pension,” says the Presidential Retirement Benefits Act.
The monthly pension of a retired president is set at 80 percent of the current salary paid to the sitting President besides other perks like fuel, house, and entertainment allowances.
Uhuru started receiving the Sh1.32 million monthly pay from December 1 and was paid a lump sum of Sh39.6 million, according to Treasury documents.
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The monthly payment of Mama Ngina, 90, has placed the former First Lady in a small and exclusive club that includes former top public officials who set back taxpayers more than Sh500 million every month to keep them comfortable in retirement.
This includes former vice-presidents Moody Awori and Kalonzo Musyoka and retired parliamentary speakers — Kenneth Marende, Francis Ole Kaparo and Ekwee Ethuro — who are paid hundreds of thousands monthly besides juicy perks like fuel and medical allowance and tens of aides paid by the State.
The Treasury has set aside over Sh1 billion in the current financial year ending June to cater for the retirement benefits of the privileged former State officials in a package that also includes the pay and perks of opposition leader Raila Odinga for his role as Prime Minister between 2008 and 2013.
This underlines the taxpayers’ burden of keeping former State officials comfortable in retirement.
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