Teachers’ strike too touchy for TSC, must be handled higher up

It is disturbing that as the country draws closer to becoming unmanageable as a consequence of growing restlessness in the industrial sector, the Government appears comfortable with burying its head in the sand; pretending all is well.

Disruptions in the education and health sectors are adversely affecting service delivery.

Those disruptions are likely to have a ripple effect as intimated by a joint meeting between the Central Organisation of Trade Unions (Cotu) and teachers’ unions held yesterday at Uhuru Park in Nairobi.

While expressing solidarity with the striking teachers over the Government’s refusal to effect a 50 to 60 per cent pay hike awarded by the industrial court, Cotu Secretary General Francis Atwoli threatened to mobilise all workers starting next week to boycott work in support of the teachers.

The danger with such an action is that it will embolden all those who have been agitating for salary increments for some time to pressurise the Government.

As such, the Government must come to terms with whether the economy can absorb the shock waves of widespread industrial action.

The Kenyan shilling, as things stand, is on wobbly feet and needs all the support it can get.

This is in the form of increased exports, a conducive environment to tourism, which has shown signs of revival, and the undivided attention of all workers without whom the engine that runs the economy cannot turn.

We are in a volatile period when civil and industrial unrest on a wide scale can be taken advantage of by a few unscrupulous individuals for personal gain.

Street demonstrations have often turned chaotic after being hijacked by individuals with vested interests.

At a time that we are laboriously building investor confidence, the last thing the country needs is violence to drive them away.

No tourists will be willing to go where they might be beaten or robbed on the streets.

No investor will put up his money where it might go up in smoke overnight, yet they are our major sources of getting foreign exchange.

This is why the Government must act to forestall anything that might threaten peace and harmony.

The president has largely remained quiet on the teachers’ issue, perhaps preferring the Teachers Service Commission (TSC), as his deputy once intimated, to handle the matter on its own.

But the reality is that the TSC is bound by constitutional and budgetary restraints that only Parliament can relax.

Unfortunately, Members of Parliament did not think the teachers issue was big enough to delay their going on recess by even one week to debate and find ways of resolving the matter.

The writing is on the wall and the President must take up the matter of teachers personally.

The Government cannot hope to eradicate illiteracy by a given time when it keeps learners away from school by antagonising teachers and remaining quiet about it hoping things will right themselves at some point.

As the issue of strikes festers, cholera is ravaging parts of the country.

If the supply of water is disrupted by a strike while doctors have downed their tools, we can only imagine the consequences.