Former councillors from Kakamega county have appealed to President Uhuru Kenyatta and ODM leader Raila Odinga to help speed up their retirement benefit payments.
Kenya Former Councillors Forum, Kakamega branch chairman Modekai Nandwa yesterday urged the government to expedite the headcount of the former civic leaders and pay their gratuity to end their suffering.
“We are suffering in silence. We were voting three-piece, President-MP-councilor and now the President and MP are receiving their pension while we former councillors have been left out,” Nandawa said.
He appealed to MPs to pass the Councillors’ Bill 2018 to facilitate their payouts.
Nandwa was accompanied by branch secretary Meshack Luchendo, Daniel Tuvei (treasurer) and Henry Shikami (organising secretary).
The Senate passed a Bill that requires 12,000 former councillors countrywide who served between 1963 and 2013 to be paid Sh1.5 million gratuity in one payout and a Sh30,000 monthly stipend.
Treasury, Labour and Devolution ministries formed a task force in October last year to carry out a headcount of all past civic leaders and recommend how the payments should be made.
Most former councillors are languishing in abject poverty given they never earned salaries but only received allowances before the inception of devolution.
There was equally no law on how to handle them while out of the office at the moment.
Councillors were replaced by MCAs after the current Constitution was enacted under devolution in 2013.
Former civic leaders have recently claimed there existed a plot by some individuals to access their personal details and force their payouts through a sacco.
