Colonial Heritage: Kenyans still paying British pensioners

On 26th July and August 30, 2023 two coup d'état occurred in Niger and Gabon respectively. In Niger, the presidential guard removed and detained President Mohamed Bazoum while in Gabon, incumbent president Ali Bongo Ondimba who had won the general election held on 26 August was detained by soldiers.

These two overthrows of government has raised a lot eyebrows and questions the democratic credential of Africans. It has ruffled the feathers of some African leaders especially in West Africa who have panickedly been issuing statements condemning coups on the continent.

Coups are generally not the best option for continuity of governance but sometimes become the only sinquanon for a people who feel oppressed by their political elite.

The coups in those countries brought to the fore some of the inimical agreements that some colonial government signed with some independent countries of Africa, emphasizing that between France and it's Francophone countries. It has generated a lot of discussions amongst members of the African community in various social media platforms questioning the rational for such agreements and why would our current leaders continue to honour such outdated and irrelevant agreements till this day?

Another agreement has gone viral on social media outlining some imperialist nation's agreement with an African country-Kenyan and that of the British government.

In Odhiambo Kevin Opiyo Facebook post, he shares that "Kenya still sends millions to Britain as pension to British citizens who served in the colonial Kenya Civil Service. This money is remitted through Crown Agent Bank".

He however claims that there are arguments that Kenya could be paying ghost pensioners, since it is very unlikely that most people who retired in 1963, are still alive.

According to the post, Kenya is still pampering British retirees while thousands of East African soldiers of the Kings African Rifles who fought for King George in the two world wars were left to die in destitution. What an irony?

"The British government refused to pay for their pensions and other benefits and transferred that responsibility to the respective African governments", Opiyo, 2023.

With the independence of the three East African nations becoming a possibility, in December 1956, representatives of the War Office visited Nairobi where they held a meeting with officials from the East Africa High Commission and colonial governments of Kenya, Tanganyika and Uganda.

During the meeting as narrated by the Opiyo's Facebook Post the officials from the War Office agreed to handover War Office buildings in East Africa to East African colonial governments if they agreed to take responsibility for pension to African soldiers of the Kings African Rifles.

This was agreed upon and ratified in Command Paper 281 of 1957. And on July 1, 1957, the responsibility of paying African soldiers pensions was passed on from the War Office to East African colonial governments.

This colonial burden was later passed on to independent states of East Africa. In the 1960s as Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania gained independence, the were saddled with the huge responsibility and liability for pensions which were transferred to the new African governments, by the outgoing colonial governments.

Expatiating further, the post said, On Dec 6, 2017, an individual wrote to the British Ministry of Defence under the Freedom of Information Act (2000) demanding to know the number of former servicemen of Kings African Rifles who receive pensions from the British government.

The MoD in response wrote: "The majority of individuals recruited into colonial force regiments were citizens of that colony, and not British subjects. The KAR was managed by British officers, seconded from the British Army. As well as the physical transfer of people, liabilities for pensions also transferred to that nation."

In trying to ascertain the veracity or otherwise of the Facebook Post unearthed a publication of The Standard titled "Why you will pay British pensioners for 30 years" and authored by Amos Kareithi, July 7, 2019.

In that write up, the story has it that Kenya is still forking out about Sh2 million monthly to pay 1,500 pensioners in Britain for the services they rendered to the colonial government, almost six decades after independence.

The story adds, at the same time, the government will from the end of this month pay all the 277,000 public servants a three per cent increment in their monthly pensions.

According to the Director of Pensions, Shem Nyakutu, s reported by Kariethi, 2019, this will push the pension bill by Sh3 billion, meaning the total amount of annual pay out will shoot to Sh104 billion for the 2019/20 financial year.

Nyakutu further adds the country will continue remitting pensions to former colonial public servants for the next 30 years, going by the average age of the surviving pensioners.

It is as a result of this phenomenon which has existed over several decades that others believe has contributed to rendering some African countries impoverished and make ordinary citizens believe that most of their leaders are puppets of imperialist and accounting for the surge in coups.

Agreements are to honoured but where it has colonial vestiges which doesn't make any economic sense and serves as a drain on the already overstretched budget of African Nations, same must be repudiated or renegotiated to serve the African interest.