Nairobi MCAs, Education executive clash over bursaries

Nairobi County Education Executive Lucia Mulwa. PHOTO | COLLINS OMULO | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Nairobi West MCA Maurice Gare urged his counterparts to censure the executive saying she is not fit to lead the sector.

  • Last week, Ms Mulwa said that the county government was yet to disburse Sh15 million.

  • Pumwani MCA Paul Irungu said his ward is yet to receive Sh1.2 million while records at the county indicate the balance is Sh880, 000.

Nairobi MCAs have threatened to impeach County Education Executive Lucia Mulwa over delays in the disbursement of bursary funds to beneficiaries.

The ward reps have questioned Ms Mulwa’s ability to lead the docket.

This comes after it emerged that more than 80 wards in Nairobi County are yet to receive their Sh3.5 million bursary allocations, two months after the Controller of Budget approved the disbursement of the funds.

DELAYS

The MCAs’ move emerged during a Nairobi County Assembly Education committee meeting looking into the delays in the disbursement of the Sh297.5 million bursary fund which has been contested for the past seven months.

Nairobi West MCA Maurice Gare urged his counterparts to censure the executive saying she is not fit to lead the sector.

Last week, Ms Mulwa said that the county government was yet to disburse Sh15 million. She said they had already wired over Sh281 million to the 85 wards but only four wards – Njiru, Utawala, Mlango Kubwa and Karen – had received the full amount.

“We have done well in disbursing the money, already four wards have zero balances and we promise that all the wards will have their Sh3.5 million,” said Ms Mulwa.

However, some MCAs disputed the figures tabled by the executive saying that some of them were not the actual amounts owed to them.

Pumwani MCA Paul Irungu said his ward was yet to receive Sh1.2 million while records at the county indicated the balance was Sh880, 000.

“My manager says that the ward has not received Sh1.2 million as per his records,” said Mr Irungu.

BENEFICIARIES

The MCAs said the beneficiaries have been camping at their ward offices.

Kahawa West MCA Anthony Ng’ang’a complained that the county gave them vouchers indicating that the full amount had been disbursed while that was not the case.

“Why give out vouchers knowing that the full Sh3.5 million has not been sent to schools? Parents have been complaining that we gave them fake vouchers,” said Mr Ng’ang’a.

The executive said that some transactions had been rejected due to wrong account details, wrong bank branch codes, wrong names and lack of special characters in bank details.

“All the wards should ideally have no balances but some transactions have been rejected for various reasons with the money coming back to us. However, we are working on the issue,” said the Education sector accountant.

The Education executive however declined to reveal the bursary account’s current balance.

SH400 DEFICIT

 “We need to establish what figures we are working with because we might assume there is money which might be the opposite,” said South B MCA Chege Waithera.

The executive could not explain the Sh400, 000 deficit which had been raised by nominated MCA Kabiro Mbugua.

“Your document reads that that Sh281.8 million has been released with a balance of Sh15.3 million but the two figures do not add up to the Sh297.5 million total sum. Where is the Sh400,000 deficit?” posed Mr Mbugua. The accountant said the deficit was occasioned by bank charges.

“The money might have been taken up by bank charges as we wired the money to different accounts,” he said.

Nevertheless, Ms Waithera disagreed with the accountant saying that transaction costs were to come from outside the bursary fund account.

“Bank charges should come outside the bursary account and saying that is a total lie,” she said.