Government increases Mama Ngina Kenyatta’s monthly salary

Mama Ngina Kenyatta’s salary: Mama Ngina Kenyatta, a former first lady, has had her State pension boosted to Sh679,800 per month amid fresh scrutiny of her family’s multibillion-shilling wealth.

According to Treasury data obtained by the Business Daily, Mama Ngina’s pension was increased from the Sh568,218 that she received in 2018 at the taxpayers’ expense for being the first wife of Kenya’s president, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, who passed away in 1978.

A major complaint about the extravagant retirement perks given to State officials and prominent figures like Mama Ngina is that they left service with excessive riches, including prime houses worth billions of shillings and significant company holdings.

The statute requiring a spouse of a president to get 40 percent of his or her annual salary is what determines how much the former first lady received in state compensation.

Yet, according to some lawyers, the payout is in violation of the Presidential Retirement Benefits Act, which went into effect in January 2003.

They contend that the rule cannot be implemented retroactively and suggest that it should be extended to the spouse of a president who passed away after 2003, whether he or she was in office or had just retired.

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Mama Ngina on tax evasion

Mama Ngina Kenyatta hbroke silence over the tax evasion debate putting the Kenyatta business empire on the spotlight.

In an apparent response to allegations by President William Ruto’s allies that businesses owned by the Kenyatta family had evaded taxes, the spouse of the country’s founding leader Mzee Jomo Kenyatta and mother to immediate former President Uhuru Kenyatta said the claims were baseless.

“There are procedures on matters taxes and one cannot avoid paying taxes because it is against the country’s law,” she said during the handover of a church in Malindi whose construction she aided.

“If all these reports are true then they should reclaim the money form the businesses,” she added.

In remarks delivered in Kiswahili, Mama Ngina appeared to suggest Ruto’s campaign to tame tax evasion was politically motivated.

“Why do they get excited when they mention other people’s names?” she posed.

The remarks by Mama Ngina who has often kept away from the public limelight apart from her brief engagement at the beginning of her son’s presidential campaign in 2013 and in support of Raila Odinga’s 2022 bid caught many by surprise.