Matiang’i seeks new school books supply mode

Education Secretary Fred Matiang’i says the State has not yet arrived at an alternative model for distributing books to public schools that would be fool proof against graft.

Mr Matiang’i, is instead, making calls for stakeholder engagement in review of the current process, which involves use of multiple suppliers.

He said the current model must be reformed as it was bleeding the State of billions of shillings annually.

“Three studies by Unesco, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission and the Kenya Publishers Association have proved to the ministry that the government loses about Sh6.5 billion every year under the current model.

‘‘This is about Sh18 billion in the last three years, monies which would instead be used to build classrooms or laboratories in deprived schools.

‘‘This system has been held hostage by middle men and cartels and it is only logical that we must rethink it again,” said the CS in Nairobi on Tuesday.

He said a planned meeting of all stakeholders including teachers, book sellers and publishers would establish the right model.

STAKEHOLDERS MEETING

“I have invited colleagues to chart the way forward but surely we cannot be losing money the way we have been,” said the CS.

Calls by the Cabinet secretary on the review of the model have faced resistance from book sellers.

Unions led by the Kenya National Union of Teachers, (Knut) and the Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet), have also dismissed proposals to scrap the model.

They said, for instance, adopting the centralisation of book and stationary distribution where government procures the reading materials directly would lead to the return of mega corruption in the distribution system.

However Mr Matiang’i said the current system had been abused and manipulated becoming a gravy train for rogue head teachers and book sellers.