Gilgil Mp Martha Wangari and Principals from Nakuru County have raised an alert over possible loss of millions of shillings in procurement of textbooks for public schools.
According to the Mp and the head teachers, schools were over supplied with hundreds of books that they did not need as part of the capitation fees that went to pay the printers.
The Mp noted that she would raise the issue in parliament so that the CS for Education could be summoned to address the current scandal.
This comes barely a week after it emerged that the government had lost millions on ghost schools that were getting funding from the State.
Speaking in Gilgil, Wangari accused some ministry officials of working with the printers in the current scandal that had seen some schools missing out on capitation funds.
According to her, tens of schools in the country had been oversupplied with books that they did not require while set books were being changed every year.
Wangari noted that the treasury was deducting the text books fees from the capitation funds forcing some schools to work against low budgets.
“It’s time that we allowed teachers to procure the books that they need and we should put a threshold on the amount used to buy the books,” she said.
Addressing the press after issuing Sh32m bursary to needy families, the legislator noted that the education sector was under threat due to lack of funding from the State.
She said that constituencies were yet to get the full development funds despite the financial year ending and students returning back to class in July.
“Many parents have suffered after losing their jobs due to Covid-19 pandemic yet the treasury has failed to release all the development funds,” she said.
The Mp at the same time challenged the Ministry of Education to release the full list of students who had benefited from the Elimu Kenya Scholarship fund.
“Many donors have reduced the number of needy students they were supporting and we want the list of beneficiaries of the scholarship fund as Gilgil has been left out,” he said.
And speaking in a different forum in Naivasha, the head teachers raised an alert over the continued dumping of books in their schools.
The teachers who declined to be named for fear of disciplinary action said that public schools were now full of books that they did not need.
They accused the government officers of working with the printers to distribute the books which had already been supplied leading to a reduction in the capitation fees.
“Every student is expected to get around Sh22,000 in capitation but most of the funds are going towards paying for the books leading to a financial crisis in the schools,” said a principal.
He further added that they had been forced to buy plastic water tanks to store the hundreds of books after running out of space.
“At first we used to issue the books to the students to carry home but they are also overwhelmed by the numbers while we have run out of storage,” said another teacher.