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{
    "id": 1376093,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1376093/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 227,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kitui Rural, WDM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon David Mwalika",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker, for giving me this opportunity to also contribute to those amendments on the retirement age at 60 years and the issue of acting by civil servants. If you recall, the retirement age was moved from 55 to 60 for three reasons. One, was to put the retirement age at the same level as other East African countries. Two, was to reduce pressure on the pension bill, which was increasing at a high rate. Three, was to retain officers in the civil service. This is because there was a very big gap as the Government had frozen the recruitment of civil servants. For around 10 years, there was no new recruitment in the civil service. One would ask themselves, after increasing the retirement age to 60, did we resolve those issues? The pension bill still remains very high. After retirement, people do not get their retirement benefits immediately. In the rural areas, as Members of Parliament, people always come to us asking for intervention so that they can get their pensions. The people who were supposed to retire at 55 should have been replaced by younger people. To some extent, that change increased the unemployment rate. I am a former civil servant and I have witnessed people who have worked for more than five years after retirement, in an acting capacity. We should bring amendments to this Bill so that if somebody has to act, it should be for a maximum of two years. There is nobody who has a monopoly of knowledge and experience. During that person’s employment, there must be somebody else who can learn on the job and take over after his or her retirement. There was the case of the CEO of the National Government Constituencies Development Fund (NG-CDF) Board, who acted for more than seven years. I even have a relative who has acted for more than one year in the civil service. The proposal should be 12 months and after that, a person should be confirmed on permanent basis for the job. I have seen people who have acted for two or three years but, at the end of the day, they do not get the job. Someone else from the private sector is given that position and the person who has been acting is expected to train them. It is high time that civil servants get promoted to those positions, instead of employing people from the private sector who do not even understand how the public sector operates. On the point that they should not be paid after six months, in my view, that is not the acting officer’s fault. The issue is with the Public Service Commission (PSC). The unemployment rate in this country is at around 5.5 per cent. In my view, that is very low. It should be over 10 per cent. It is one of the highest in the region. Private companies are taking advantage of the high unemployment rate. In most of those companies, you will find that many people are employed on temporary basis. There are people who have been on casual employment for 5, 10 or even 20 years. Since the supply of labour is more, you do not even need to employ them on permanent basis. Unemployment should be a national conversation. As a country, we are taking this issue lightly. For instance, the proposed affordable housing project will only create temporary jobs. What will happen when the houses are completed? We need to address several issues that are causing unemployment. The first reason is the slow economic growth in the country. The economy is not expanding. It has been growing at 5 per cent rate for the longest time. In Vision 2030, the proposal was that the economy should grow at 10 per cent per annum. However, it has never grown beyond 5 per cent. The second reason is the high taxation rates on inputs which increases the cost of doing business. Additionally, there is lack of incentives and poor infrastructure. Our population rate The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor"
}