How TSC paid a whopping Sh466.9 million to dead or retired teachers
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Parliament calls for audit after it emerged TSC paid dead and retired teachers a whopping Sh466.9 million
Parliament calls for audit after it emerged TSC paid dead and retired teachers a whopping Sh466.9 million.
According to documents presented to lawmakers, the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) paid millions to teachers who had either died, exited the commission, resigned or absconded duty.
While the commission’s chief executive, Nancy Macharia, appeared before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) to address audit inquiries for the fiscal year that ends on June 30, 2022, she struggled to explain how the commission paid out such enormous sums of money without realizing that the teachers were no longer employed.
In light of this, the MPs requested that a system audit be carried out on the commission’s payroll in order to ascertain whether any additional losses occurred.
Auditor General Nancy Gathungu, in a report for the financial year ending June 2022, raised queries relating to salary overpayment of Sh466.9 million, which is an increase of Sh114 million or 32 percent from last year’s balance of Sh352.9 million.
While supporting calls for a special audit, Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairperson John Mbadi (Nominated), questioned how the commission allowed payment of salaries to teachers who had long died.
He said: “If members feel we need to do an audit of the system, it is alright we can demand for it.”
Funyula MP Wilberforce Oundo and Soy MP David Kiplagat had sought to know whether the Auditor General had ever conducted a system audit of the TSC payroll.
“We need to carry out a system audit of TSC. I believe that there is something that is fundamentally wrong with TSC. If it is not addressed it can lead to something bigger,” said Kiplagat.
The queries by the MPs arose after TSC CEO, Macharia admitted that the matter relating to salary overpayment occurred as a result of a delay in stoppage of pay of employees upon death, desertion of duty, resignation, transfer of service, sick leave, interdiction, and absenteeism.
The overpayment, Macharia said, had grown over the years due to reporting systems that were inefficient due to their manual nature.
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She, however, said that to address the salary overpayment, the commission had developed and was implementing an overpayment policy and an online system to improve efficiency in reporting mechanisms between the commission headquarters, field officers, and schools in respect to death, desertion of duty, resignation, sick leave, and absenteeism.
She also said they had alerted heads of institutions, sub-county directors and county directors on overpayment.
“Once overpayment is recorded, recovery is progressive through the payroll for teachers who are still in TSC employment as well as mechanisms set out in the overpayment policy,” she said.
In one of the letters, TSC wrote to one Alice Sawe notifying her to refund Sh260,110 that was paid to her husband, Sawe Robert Kipleting, for four months yet he had died.
Reads the letter: “The commission demands that you settle the amount said in cash payables to Teachers Service Commission A/C no 0100100090500 National Bank of Kenya. Harambee Avenue, Nairobi. In the event of their failure to honor this demand, the commission shall proceed to recover the said amount in accordance with the laid done procedures without further communication to this matter.”
In another case, the commission demanded that Edward Sabwa refund Sh85,764.95 which was an overpayment made between 1.11.2021 and 30.11.2021.
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