MPs raise questions over Ksh.6B paid to KSSHA by schools

The National Assembly’s Public Investments Committee on Education and Governance is probing how up to Ksh.6 billion has been paid to the Kenya Secondary School Heads Association (KSSHA) by school principals in what MPs term an irregular organisation.

Heads of Cluster One institutions, previously classified as national schools, on Thursday had a difficult time responding to queries on their expenditure and bookkeeping, which the Auditor General found wanting, with weak internal controls identified.

School heads continue to appear before the Parliamentary Public Investments Committee on Education and Governance for the first time to answer audit queries on how they run their schools.

The Auditor General’s report flags weaknesses in bookkeeping, budgetary control and expenditure.

In one top school, questionable allowances were paid through boarding and school fund accounts and paid out to individuals without supporting documents, board approval minutes or Salaries and Remuneration Commission circulars approving the rates.

Several schools also ran unbalanced budgets, lacked strategic plans and had incomplete asset registers, while some failed to comply with the law on staff ethnic composition.

In one of the schools, the review of personal files revealed that the school had 65 employees.

However, the audit found that 52 of the school’s 65 employees, which is 80 per cent, were from the same ethnic community, contrary to Section 7(2) of the National Cohesion and Integration Act, 2008, which requires public institutions to reflect Kenya’s diversity and limits one ethnic community to no more than one-third of staff.

One question cuts across nearly all the audit queries facing the C1, formerly national schools: payments to what MPs describe as an irregular organisation, the Kenya Secondary School Heads Association.

“Kessha receives close to six billion shillings... which is not under the purview of the auditor,” said Dick Maungu, Chairman, PIC Education and Governance

The Auditor General flagged Ksh.128,500 remitted to KSSHA by Alliance Girls High School in just one year. The chief principal Margaret Njeru didn’t deny it.

She defended it, saying, “In Alliance we have many co-curricular activities, and the girls love them because of the underfunding from the ministry. Kessha comes up and organises those activities. They cannot go for free.”

She says her school pays per student, per head. The money, she says, comes from the operations account and boarding fees.

It wasn’t just Alliance Girls under the spotlight. Loreto Girls School sent over a much larger figure to the same organisation.

“A transfer of one point one million shillings was made to Kssha. This was to organise the joint co-curricular activities, so that we enhance the development of talent,” Lenah Ngesa, Lorero’s head, said.

The committee members, however, were not convinced by the explanations, sparking a heated exchange between the members and the principals.

“Who in the first place directed you to give that money to Kessha? Is there any letter?” asked a committee member.

Alliance Girls’ Principal Margaret Njeru responded, “What guided us was the love of our work. Of teaching and developing talent.”

Another member asked, “Did you get any circular from the ministry to start dispersing money to an amorphous organisation known as Kessha? No. So why do you want a circular now, to make you stop?”

Margaret responded, “What guided us was the love of our work. Of teaching and developing talent.”

“Madam Principal, why don't you apply that same love and stop remitting the money?” Dick Maungu stated.

The MPs say school heads must regularise the association and provide it with a clear legal basis. Failure to do so, they warn, could leave individual school heads personally liable for any financial losses arising from the remittances.

“The law says the county education board should do sports. What you're telling us is nothing is happening,” Maungu added.

The committee says it will summon KSSHA officials next. For now, heads of schools remain caught in the middle, between talent they say must be nurtured and public money they cannot fully account for.