A resident from Nairobi has moved to court to challenge the current setting of the mandatory retirement age for workers at 60 years and 65 years for those with different abilities.
According to the resident (Charles Chege Chege) , the mandatory retirement age in both the private and public sectors is unlawful and so the court should declare it.
As per to the argument presented by Chege, the right to work should not be understood narrowly to mean limitations by retirement age , but instead , it should be purposely based on giving the greatest positive effect that it holds.
Chege further indicates that the Federation of Kenya Employers has heavily borrowed from the public sector that forces its workers to retire at 60 years and 65 years for persons with disability without having any legal reasons for doing the same.
The resident says that such retirement practice based on ages is a pure discrimination and thus it goes against article 27(4), article 28 on human dignity.
In his papers, he adds that the retirement is practice is against article 41(1) based on right to fair labour practices as well as guidelines in article 57(a) on fully participation in the affairs of society.
Recently, there has been a heated debate following the proposal from the law makers to have the retirement reduced from 60 to 55 years.
Its good idea civil servants to go home at 55 years but remember civil servants have several questions to ask.For instance; will the government be able to pay all the retirees their dues(pensions and any other necessary fee in time ? Bearing in mind,if that happens,the government will have to pay huge man,which I’m doubting they’ll not make it.
I totally agree with the residents who have gone to Court to challenge the use of retirement age, more especially when some young boys some of whom can not even present themselves for an interview unscrupulously finds themselves into Parliament and now wish to please certain individuals comes with a very weird notion on the same.
Fellow Kenyans,we do not create employment by removing others, that can only be done by a failed system.
The retirement Age should be 65 years.
Many in formal employment have taken employer guaranteed loans from saccos and banks based on the 60 year retirement age. Will the government pay off the loan balances if it reduces the age to 55yrs? Or will the “guarantor”, who are the employers bear the burden, bearing in mind you cannot attach a retiree’s benefits?!?
There is a deficit in the number of TSC /Government employed teachers in Kenya in excess of 85,000 as we speak today.
The government does not have enough funds to hire them at once.
If all teachers above 55yrs are retired, the deficit will shoot up to over 150, 000 teachers.
So where will the government get money to hire over 100,000 teachers and at the same time pay retirement benefits to over 20,000 fresh retire retirerees- most of them in management deserving higher pensions?