Magoha Dismisses Report On Sh10 Million Allowances, Defends Move To Monitor Distribution Of Desks And lockers

NAIROBI, Kenya, Jul, 18 – At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the government launched an economic stimulus package that saw the commissioning of lockers and desks to aid schools to enforce social distancing regulations.

The move saw local artisans sourced to complete the task while posting local economies.

Now, an audit report by the office of the Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu has revealed that top officials at the Ministry of Education received close to Sh10 million in daily allowances back in 2020 while inspecting/monitoring the distribution of lockers and desks to schools.

“The state department has established offices in all counties and the staff in these offices could have been used with minimal or no costs. This expenditure was therefore against Section 79(2b) of the Public Finance Management Act, 2012 which states that a public officer employed in a National Government state organ or public entity should ensure that resources within the officer’s area of responsibility are used in a way that is lawful and authorized and effective, efficient, economical and transparent,” the report reads in part. 

Gathungu argued that the exercise could have been conducted by county staff at a minimal to no cost.

On Monday meanwhile while commissioning a CBC classroom at Chania Girls High School in Thika West, Kiambu County, Education Cabinet Secretary Prof George Magoha defended the expenditure saying that as ‘top boss’ at the ministry it was imperative that he personally oversaw the exercise was executed as expected.

“I go to commission projects because I don’t trust anybody. I must make sure that I’m not given reports that can’t be verified. It’s so much better to go to jail because you went to inspect something that is there that cannot be carried away, instead of being praised for or accused of spending money that was used on something that’s not there.”

During the project, the ministry supplied 622,357 lockers and chairs to 5,136 public primary schools and 5,254 secondary schools. Every selected primary school received 70 desks while secondary school got 50 lockers and chairs.

Since then, Magoha has also been touring the country to commission the construction of CBC classrooms ahead of the transition to junior secondary schools.

The government has spent close to Sh10 billion on the construction exercise.