Egerton University bank accounts frozen over workers' arrears

Bank accounts of Egerton University have been frozen by a State agency.

Egerton University headed by Professor Rose Monya is facing a financial crisis after the Commissioner for Cooperative Development froze its bank accounts over workers’ deduction arrears.

According to documents seen by the Standard, the bank accounts were frozen a week ago owing to a debt amounting to Sh246 million.

The Commissioner for Cooperative Development, Mrs. Mary Mungai stated that the University had not been remitting contributions deducted from employees from January this year to date.

To make matters worse for the university, money deducted from workers to repay loans has also not been remitted to Egerton Savings and Cooperative Society.

This means that normal operations at the institution of higher learning have been halted following the move to freeze the accounts at the three local banks.

Speaking to the Standard on Friday, Prof. Monya, the Vice Chancellor, admitted that the Commissioner for cooperative development had indeed frozen Egerton bank accounts adding that the issue was being sorted out.

She downplayed claims that there was a crisis at the university saying “everything was on going on well.”

“I’m not aware of any crisis. Yes, we had a problem with the cooperative society but that has been sorted out,” she said when reached for comments.

But the Dr. Fredrick Juma, the University Academic Staff Union (UASU) treasurer, said no agreement has been reached over the matter and the accounts are still frozen after the Prof. Monya, declined to give her comment on the way-forward.

“There was a meeting early this week but nothing much came out of it after her offer was rejected by the Cooperative,” Dr. Juma said.

According to sources the Vice Chancellor had offered to give the Cooperative Sh60 million as the first installment to have one of the bank accounts that had Sh203 million unfrozen.

“But when she failed to commit the university in paying the balance, the Cooperative declined the offer and we now have a stalemate,” an official of the cooperative who did not wish to be named said.

The freezing of Egerton University bank accounts came at a time when public universities are only paying their staff net salaries due to financial crisis they are facing.

A month ago, Vice Chancellors Committee Chairman Francis Aduol said even though universities are indicating statutory deductions on payslips running into billions of shillings, they are not remitting the money to the relevant institutions.