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{
    "id": 810748,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/810748/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 296,
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    "content": "Even the culture of saving and benefits is very good for those people whose money is deducted. Through the Report, I can see most of the workers recommended that their deduction be brought down from the previous 12 per cent to 7 per cent but there are very many advantages when it comes to contributing to the retirement benefit schemes. The higher the amount of money gets deducted to go to the retirement schemes, the lesser taxable income. Sometimes being deducted small monies here and there, with time and with the compounding interest, the small monies that get deducted over time grow to become a significant amount of money which of course is not an asset of the administrator but the asset of the person who contributes. Yesterday, I was in Murang’a. As I was taking tea somewhere, I met an old man and as we chatted, I realised that he was a former councillor. Even if this scheme is not taking care of the former councillors, as the Chair put it, most of these guys are living in oblivion. It is upon this House to look at their welfare. This gentleman was telling me that he was a councillor for three terms. By the look of things, I could see he was beaten by life. His salary then was a paltry Kshs3,500. There was nothing like National Government Constituencies Development Fund (NG-CDF) that we have currently. It was a great sacrifice on their side to serve this country. We cannot sit here as leaders and not talk of such colleagues who are living in abject poverty. In terms of policy, there is one country that has been able to manage their retirement benefit schemes very well. Policy-wise, it has led to an increment of the percentages of people who own homes. This country is Singapore. Through their central provident fund, you are allowed to withdraw money and channel the same money that you pay for retirement to mortgage. On that basis and through such a policy, Singapore currently enjoys home ownership of close to 92 per cent. I am sure with time, we will be able to be creative as we come up with these kinds of schemes and these kinds of laws so that we can kill two birds with one stone as we try to accelerate home ownership through the Big Four Agenda. I am sure these kinds of schemes can go a long way in assisting people to own homes through the same savings they are making. The monies that are usually channelled to these schemes can have more capital gains if they are channelled to properties like apartments or even homes. There are some few challenges that I have noted and they are across the board, not just for county workers. For us Members of Parliament and every other worker, to maintain the same standard of living during retirement, we require not less than 80 per cent of our current earnings. Looking at the kind of deductions we are making, it is an improvement but it is a challenge across board. The amount of money we contribute to these schemes cannot help any person who contributes to live the same kind of life they live when they are employed. I have noted of course that the employer being the county government and the entities around the county government including the Assembly will be paying 15 per cent and the worker 7 per cent. It is a good step in the right direction but we have to look holistically even through NSSF and others so that we increase these percentages so that these people including us who are working may not have to go down in terms of our standard of living when we retire. The other challenge I have noted across board in terms of the management of the retirement schemes is of course the investment risk. We have seen that in NSSF. Some years back when some of the stockbrokers went under especially discount securities, billions of money of NSSF went under. These kinds of investment risks can be mitigated through the investment The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}