Retirement Benefits Authority (RBA) has established a service desk at Kisumu’s Huduma Center in a bid to decentralize their services and boost membership base.
The Authority, headquartered in Nairobi now has a presence in Kisumu County, besides Mombasa and Eldoret Huduma Centres, unveiled in June 2022.
The retirement regulator in partnership with Huduma Kenya Secretariat targets to establish a footing in major towns, with insurance firms in a bid to improve pension coverage in the country.
RBA Deputy Manager Seth Onyango said the initiative is an achievement of the Authority’s Strategic Plan 2019-2024 envisioned to improve services delivery through the provision of efficient and accessible services to clients.
So far, Nakuru, Kakamega and Nyeri Counties have been earmarked for the program in the coming week.“We expect to expand our reach to 8 regional Huduma centres by the end of the current strategic planning period in June 2024,” said Onyango during the launch in Kisumu.
This is a fulfilment of the greater constitutional duty of extending government services to the counties and citizens at the Mashinani,” he added.
At the same time, RBA conducted a weeklong mobile clinic at Kisumu Huduma centre precincts to sensitize civil servants and employees from the private sector to enroll on a formal pension plan.
The deliberate measures, said Onyango, augment the Authority’s ambition to grow the industry’s assets, coverage and membership across the country.
“The platform will offer members free education on their rights and obligations within their schemes, lodge inquiries about saving for retirement, get technical assistance on RBA’s ICT Tools such as getting information from the RBA Website, online filing of statutory returns and use of the whistleblowing portal,” stated Onyango.
The newly established centre will also act as a drop-off point for the registration and licensing application forms and offer the stakeholders supporting advisory services.
The state corporation mandated to promote the development of the pension sector has registered 1076 active retirement benefits schemes and pensioners with a membership of about 7.3 million.
Over the last two decades, the industry has posted tremendous growth in assets currently valued at over Sh.1.5 trillion from Sh44.5 billion in 2,000.
Further, RBA is committed to growing the sector’s assets base to Sh.2.4 trillion and attaining coverage of 30 percent by 2024.
The pension industry is also leveraging on the thriving informal sector labour force, with innovative products tailored towards their needs to enhance coverage.
By Robert Ojwang’
