By Tajeu Shadrack Nkapapa
Cabinet Secretary for the National Treasury and Economic Planning John Mbadi has said that the government lacks the financial resources necessary to hire 20,000 Junior Secondary School teachers on a permanent and pensionable basis.
While speaking in a media interview on Thursday evening Mr. John Mbadi said that the exchequer does not have the financial capacity to absorb Junior Secondary Schools teachers.
“We don’t have resources for recruiting JSS teachers on permanent and we don’t have resources for the additional 20,000. There is a shortfall of about Ksh.13 billion. This year is a year of serious challenges, we are trying to manage the budget,” Treasury CS said.
“There is no money availed for conversions unless we do budget adjustments which we really don’t have space for. This year has been challenging. We really had to look around and see how we can raise the money we made available for teachers for their salary adjustments,” he added.
This comes after the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) and the Kenya Union of Post Primary Teachers (KUPPET) on Monday of 26TH August 2024 announced a nationwide strike on what they termed as government failing to meet their demands.
Among the unaddressed grievances raised by the unions of Teachers is the immediate recruitment of 20,000 new JSS teachers.
Teachers also accused the government for failing to prompt remittance of all third-party deductions and a commitment to begin discussions on the new round of the Collective Bargaining Agreement.
Treasury CS John Mbadi said that he is not going to oppress Kenyans with unnecessary taxes but he will focus to enhance revenue collection without changing rates.
“We need to enhance revenue collection without changing the tax rates. I am not a conman, I did not come to the Treasury to continue with business as usual. I have told the President that he must understand that I have come here to do things differently,” he said.
“We are not going to oppress Kenyans with unnecessary taxes just because we have been told to do so.”
Hon. Mbadi said that Eco levy is not one of the things they are considering to bring back. He added that Finance Bill 2024 will also not come back because Kenyans rejected many clauses in the Bill.