Seal loopholes in the pension payments

The agony many pensioners who retire from government service face has been widely articulated. It takes exceedingly long to get the payments processed and disbursed to the beneficiaries. Cases abound of pensioners who die without getting payment, leaving their dependants in a quandary given the difficulty of accessing the funds.

Against this background, a new report by the Auditor-General Edward Ouko on management of government pension funds is quite depressing. It lays bare serious loopholes and transgressions in disbursement of the funds, leading to massive losses.

The latest audited report of the Pensions Department covering five years, 2012-2017, indicates that the government may have lost some Sh68 billion paid to fake pensioners. That is a major indictment of the system. In this scheme, some people were paid pension even before they reached retirement age, meaning that they earned double from the government. Even more ridiculous, dead people were paid pension for several years.

Specifically, the report indicates that there are serious defects in the Pensions Management Information System that allow the release of cash to unauthorised individuals. This explains why deserving pensioners always miss out of the cash while some dubious fellows penetrate the system and organise payments for fake beneficiaries. Clearly, this is criminal and deserves sanctions.

Although it is explained that the problem could have emanated from a weak financial management system at the department, experience has taught us that such acts are deliberate. The loopholes are strategically designed to benefit individuals.

The starting point is to seal the loopholes that allow the looting by fortifying the system to lock out cheats. But a more long-term solution that takes a systemic approach, diagnosing how the pensioners are enrolled, systems of cash disbursement and ways of verification to ascertain that real retirees and not phantoms are the beneficiaries is paramount.

It is insensitive to a have a scenario where pensioners cannot get their dues and are often taken round in circles with long tales while a few individuals devise systems to siphon money from the government under the guise of being retirees.

We call for further investigations to get to the bottom of the matter and those culpable are punished. Arising out of the findings of the report, the government must embark on an aggressive reform of the Pensions Department to streamline its operations so that it can serve the pensioners better.

We must guard against these serial looters of taxpayers’ money.