Knut defies Uhuru plea to end strike

Teachers on Friday rejected President Uhuru Kenyatta’s calls to end their strike and demanded the immediate release of their salaries.

The Teachers Service Commission has withheld the June salaries of the striking teachers .

Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) officials led by their chairman Wilson Sossion and national secretary-general Mudzo Nzili told the President they would not call off the strike unless the government gives in to their demands.

“We cannot go back to work without a clear and an acceptable return-to-work formula. Strikes are not just called off like that,” Mr Sossion said on Friday.

The Knut leaders, who were addressing a press conference at the union’s headquarters, also accused the government of blackmailing their members by unconstitutionally withholding their salaries.

Said Mr Sossion: “Teachers worked up to June 24 and it is therefore unfair to deny them their pay. We demand that the TSC releases June salaries immediately to stop subjecting teachers to unnecessary suffering.”

Teachers servicing loans through standing orders face penalties due to the delayed salaries. Mr Sossion also dismissed a late night Sh20 billion deal between the government and their rivals, the Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) on Thursday as inferior and asked teachers to ignore it.

According to the Knut chairman, what was offered to Kuppet was never part of the ongoing demands and was never subjected to a consultative committee on teachers’ remuneration where Knut is a member as required.

“We have noticed that the government is now using emerging small unions to push for their agenda. What Kuppet negotiated is inferior and unconstitutional,” said Mr Sossion.

He insisted that Knut will only call off the strike if a reasonable agreement is reached and urged the government to stop threatening its national officials. “No teacher should resume duty even at gunpoint despite the ongoing intimidation,” Mr Sossion stated.

Mr Nzili, who read the union’s official statement during the press briefing, accused Attorney-General Githu Muigai of obstructing negotiations by misleading the government.

“We are appealing to our teachers not to misunderstand the President. We have identified the man who is behind all this. He is the Attorney General,” he said.

He said that the AG was a stranger in the dispute and told him to keep off accusing him of abusing the independence of the Teachers Service Commission.

The union officials claimed there was an attempt in government to destabilise it and dismissed rumours that the strike was politically instigated or that some of its officials were negotiating a compromise deal to call off the strike.

“The AG has been the source of all this troubles in the education sector. He has consistently misadvised the government about Legal Notice Number 534 of 1997 and we have learnt that it is his office that gazzetted the Legal Notice No 16 of 2003,” Mr Nzili said.