How county bursary funds are stolen

Nyandarua County CEC for Education Faith Mbugua has revealed how crafty people have been stealing bursary funds meant to support bright and needy children in the county, a scenario repeated in many other counties The CEC said swindlers have been acting as middlemen between parents and the bursary committees, when she spoke to Nyandarua County Assembly Committee of the Whole House. 

“I remember a case where a person had secured a bursary cheque of more than ?fty thousand for a student who was supposed to join a national school and then it was sold for Sh15,000 to the rightful beneficiary,” she said.

The beneficiary was nabbed as he tried to change the name of the national school on the cheque and replace with a smaller “affordable” school. The County Government intervened and the student was taken to a different national school.

The CEC said there was still another case where some older men with no school going children wanted to collect cheques of ?fteen people. It was suspected that names of the purported bene?ciaries could even be of nonexistent persons. The Chairman of Education, Gender Affairs, Culture and Social Services Sambigi Mukuria called for concerted efforts from all stakeholders to wipe out this menace, and urged the County Government to be more vigilant when identifying bene?ciaries, processing bursary cheques and issuing them out.

The Education CEC was speaking when she appeared before the committee which is interrogating the Budget Estimates for the 2019/ 2020 ?nancial year.

The CEC could however not explain the circumstances under which the County Government dropped the idea of hiring ECDE teachers despite the fact that money for the purpose had been put in the budget.

“I was informed that the plan to recruit the teachers had been dropped by the County Secretary” she said. Salaries for staff fall under the office of the County Secretary.