•BBKPA said that lender claims the market has not been generating higher returns during the good years, has signaled even lower returns this year.
•A fact pointed out by the consultants in their letter dated 3 June 2019 as they questioned whether penalizing pensioners for volatile investment returns is appropriate.
Image: JACKTONE LAWI
Barclays Bank of Kenya Pensioners’ Association now wants the Retirement Benefits Authority to commission an audit of their pensions over concerns on how the fund is ran.
The over 1400 former employees of Barclays, now Absa, said that a review is long overdue to ensure that trustees of the pension funds are able to comply with all the regulations that are required.
This is after the pensioners accused the fund manager of failing to honour RBA Acts that provide for an annual increment in pensions in line with the present economic realities.
The associations’ secretary John Maina said that inflation has eroded half the value of pensioners’ savings and are currently not getting even by the bare minimum.
“There has been a lot of problem with the governance practices as the pension manager has been violating the rules and regulation that govern the pension fund. For instance, our pension was last increased more than a decade ago,” said Maina.
The former staffers of Absa Bank say their decades-long savings have not been earning them a decent enough return to beat years of inflation which has made it difficult to cope with the high cost of living.
BBKPA said that lender claims the market has not been generating higher returns during the good years, and worse still, has signaled even lower returns this year blaming it on the economic slowdown.
“As pensioners we hold that the poor performance of the fund is attributed to lack of monitoring by the trustees to engage with their investment manager and poor investment decisions by the fund managers,” added Maina.
Among the issues they want addressed is the lack of representation at the Board of Trustees after two of their members were axed and not replaced when they retired.
“Regular payment of Annual increase in pension (COLA) stopped after ABSA took over as the sponsors of the Pension Fund contrary to RBA Rules and regulations. The scheme has often paid less than the rate determined by the actuary and in 2020 out rightly refused to pay,” added the Chairperson of the Association Colleta Malinda.
They said that Kenyan pensioners are not treated the same way as Absa treats South African pensioners with regard to annual pension increase.
Absa in a phone enquiry said that the pensioners were for Barclays.
A report commissioned early in the year by RBA shows that at least two in five pensioners use the money they receive after retirement to pay children's school fees, and 88 per cent of retired people are still dependent on their children, grandchildren and extended family members.
Of those who still depend on pensioners for their livelihoods, nearly half are aged 21 and above, while a quarter are over 25, according to a new survey that sheds light on the harsh realities older Kenyans face after retiring from the workforce.
The survey further revealed the burden senior citizens continue to carry in their sunset years, a time when they would be expected to rest after decades of toil, as the country's dire unemployment rate leaves energetic youths and their children, in some cases, relying on meagre pensions from their parents to survive.