Githae says Treasury has no money to pay teachers

Finance minister Njeru Githae has said Treasury cannot meet the demands of striking teachers due to budgetary constraints.

Mr Githae said Wednesday the budget did not accommodate the tutors' salary demands.

"The teachers' demands were not included in the budget and according to the new law, the minister of Finance does not have powers to authorise anything which is not in the budget.

"The only options available include borrowing to pay salaries, increasing taxes or cutting on development expenditure. As the minister of Finance, I would have a problem borrowing to meet recurrent expenditure,” said Mr Githae

He was speaking at Treasury buildings during a loan signing ceremony between Kenya and Belgium to fund the installation of wind turbines at the KenGen’s Ngong wind power farm to increase its capacity.

The minister noted that giving in to the teachers’ demands would impact negatively on Kenya's economy, which is on the path of recovery from a number of challenges experienced last year including high cost of living, increased interest rates and a depreciating currency that slowed down growth.

“Strikes are a common thing around election time. Giving in to these demands will impact negatively on the economy which is still fragile and recovering from the shocks experienced earlier on,” said Mr Githae.

The minister has been accused of snubbing meetings by the parliamentary committee working to resolve the nationwide strike, leading to further delays in the talks.

Next budget

On Wednesday, the minister defended his absence saying that he was held up in other commitments including cabinet meetings.

He added that Treasury was negotiating to have the teachers’ demands catered for in the next budget.

“We are negotiating to see whether these demands can be catered for in the next budget as it is not possible to meet them now,” he said.

More than 800,000 pupils are expected to sit the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE)in about 23,000 schools while another 437,782 will sit the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) in more than 7,000 schools.

Their fate now depends on how fast negotiations to resolve the ongoing strike will be concluded.

Already, the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) has warned of a looming examination crisis should the strike persist.