Ruto under fire over Education CS Ezekiel Machogu remarks to freeze university funding
Education CS Ezekiel Machogu has come under fire over his remarks to end university funding amid a cash crunch in the institutions.
Ezekiel Machogu has been warned by academic lectures to avoid making ‘unilateral and roadside’ policy announcements without consulting stakeholders upfront.
Onesmus Mutio, the organizing secretary for the Universities Academic Staff Union, called on Sunday that the CS seeks broad input before announcing any major policy changes.
“So who has he consulted? Has he had time to engage the stakeholders and get proposals on how best to address the challenges?” he said.
The Education CS had on Saturday, November 5, 2022, announced that the government will no longer fund public universities and colleges.
Speaking at the Dedan Kimathi University in Nyeri county, Education Cabinet Secretary (CS) Ezekiel Machogu said that universities should seek alternative means of raising revenue.
“I am going to move around each and every university in Kenya because our universities are faced with problems particularly finance you get them complaining about funding.
“We are encouraging that they must generate their own revenue because the ex-checker as it is now is not going to be able to continue funding more because in Kenya education takes 25.9 percent so we have to find other ways of creating and generating revenue for universities and they have to look at other revenue schemes,” he stated.
However, Mutio said most universities are financially crippled and hardly survive without government funding.
“How do you stop funding public universities? Are you planning to turn them into private entities? What will happen to students from humble backgrounds,” Mutio paused.
He further tore into Machogu ‘s sentiments saying most public universities are currently paying their staff only 57 percent of their salaries.
“We hoped that this government would look at the deep financial challenges facing the public universities but it is very regrettable that the CS can start issuing such statements even before he settles down in the office,” Mutio said.
The union secretary continued to defend universities by claiming that they were unable to remit deductions to a number of organizations.
The University Fund estimates that public universities have debts totaling Sh56 billion.
Public universities owe suppliers Sh4.8bn, part-time lecturers Sh4.5bn, contractors Sh1.4bn, Sacco payments Sh4.1bn, and part-time lecturers Sh4.8bn.
A total of Sh139 million is outstanding to the NSSF, Sh2 million to the NHIF, Sh1.3 billion in loan deductions, Sh18 billion to pension plans, Sh13 billion to PAYE, and a total of Sh10 billion in miscellaneous loans.
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