As children go back to school, the calls for support for school fees have been overwhelming. Unfortunately, most are coming from deceased teachers' families. This provoked my deep research and the revelations are shocking.
Many insurance companies, plans and schemes have been tangled with Kenyan employees with the promise of financial security to the family in the event of a sudden death or eventual retirement, but the dependants are faced with an entirely traumatic experience.
It's unfortunate that most dependants of deceased teachers have had to drop out of school as their families deplete their meagre investments while facing their normal financial obligations. The unlucky have lost loved ones while embroiled in the struggle to secure their departed breadwinner's gratuity and savings.
Unlike the TSC's stunning speeches during the funeral service, which are full of financial security promises their plans offer, the system has been infiltrated by unscrupulous scammers yearning for investment capital to help them reap immense benefits at the detriment of families of the deceased.
If anything – if this doesn't change – the TSC needs to make counselling its key institutional mandate, since securing their aid is even more traumatising than consoling the departed's families.
It all starts with the chief's death acknowledgement letter, confirming the dependants; this goes through to the courtroom's swearing; then the documents are sent to TSC, which verifies them against their records; if errors are found—as they rarely miss—the process is reverted to its initial steps.
If lucky, the TSC finally forwards them to the pension scheme offices at the Treasury Building for consideration. The process is not only tedious but also full of bribery, which is why it takes ages to conclude.
Ideally, the gratuity and savings are scheduled to be at the dependants' disposal in at least three months, but the systemic bureaucracy drags the process to eternity if one is not graceful enough to secure it at the tail end of a decade.
As is true of our country, we are never short of policies to shape our well-being, but the guts to stick to our foundational principles is what's missing. The pension or saving security schemes must start living up to their purposes; it's fraudulent and inhumane to put our dedicated employees' families through trauma while all they ask is for their departed loved ones' personal savings.
May the voice of reason, therefore, prevail upon the government to regain its moral consciousness and crack the whip on officers that conspire to frustrate the families of dead civil servants in the name of insurance and savings plans.
