The Kenyatta family matriarch Mama Ngina has been reported to have been receiving a monthly pay and allowances from Treasury.
Reports from Business Daily indicate that she started receiving the pay way before President Uhuru Kenyatta ascended to power.
"Official documents from the Presidency indicate that Ngina Kenyatta receives Ksh 568,218 monthly at taxpayers’ expense for being the spouse of Kenya’s first President, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, who died in 1978," the publication reported.
A spot-check in the constitution reveals that indeed Mama Ngina Kenyatta is entitled to the monthly pension given Mzee Jomo Kenyatta died while still in office.
The Presidential Retirement Benefits Act No. 11 of 2003 clarifies that the wife or husband of a retired president, or of a president who dies while holding office would be entitled to benefits after their death, to a tune of 50 per cent the earnings of a sitting president.
The law has, however, given Parliament the locus to decide when the beneficiary would not be entitled to the benefits conferred by the act.
"Notwithstanding the provisions of Section 3, the National Assembly may, on a motion supported by the votes of not less than two-thirds of the members thereof, resolve that a retired president or his surviving spouse, as the case may be, shall not be entitled to the whole or any part of the benefits conferred by this Act," the constitution law.
Some of these conditions are if the president ceased to hold office as a result of gross violation of the constitution or has been convicted for three years or more without an option of a fine, while in office.
The law also stipulates that the spouse of a sitting president will not be entitled to the benefits if the head of state is kicked out as a result of actively engaging in the activities of any political party, contrary to the provisions of Section 6.
The monthly pay is also exempted from taxes.
Business Daily reported that Treasury has set aside Ksh1.5 billion in the financial year ending June 2020, to cater for the retirement benefits of former state officials in a package that includes the pay and perks of former Prime Minister Raila Odinga and former Vice Presidents Kalonzo Musyoka and Musalia Mudavadi.
