NewzNAIROBI,Kenya Aug 4 – Members of Parliament have raised questions over millions of shillings paid by public secondary schools to the Kenya Secondary School Heads Association (KSSHA), demanding an explanation on the legal basis for the transfers and how the funds are accounted for. The National Assembly Public Investments Committee on Governance and Education said its examination of Auditor-General reports had uncovered substantial payments to the association by public schools over the five financial years under review. The committee, chaired by Luanda MP Dick Maungu, said individual schools had paid millions of shillings to KSSHA, raising concerns about whether public funds were being channelled to a private members’ organisation without sufficient oversight.
Maungu told the committee that one of the schools under scrutiny had paid approximately Sh6 million to KSSHA, while another had remitted about Sh5 million. The chairman said the figures could translate into billions of shillings if similar payments were being made by public secondary schools across the country. “If you convert them into all the schools in the country, there are billions going to KSSHA, and we want to find out whether KSSHA is a recipient of public money,” Maungu said.
He questioned how a body that is not a government institution could receive money collected and controlled by public schools without being subjected to public financial accountability requirements. “KSSHA is a private members’ organisation. The activities they are doing may be good and necessary, but the contributions are public funds.
If it is public money, it must be accounted for,” he said. The committee is scrutinising Auditor-General reports covering the 2020/21 to 2024/25 financial years for a number of national schools in Nyanza and Western regions. Principals and senior managers of Ng’iya Girls High School, Maseno School, Bunyore Girls High School, Chavakali Boys High School, Maranda High School and Kisumu Girls High School appeared before the committee at the Royal Swiss Hotel in Kisumu on Thursday.
Payments to KSSHA formed part of the audit queries presented to the committee. Co-curricular activities Maseno School principal Peter Owino Otieno defended the payments, saying the school had made them in good faith and for purposes directly connected to students’ participation in co-curricular activities. KISUMU, Kenya Sep 4 – National secondary schools have paid millions of shillings to the Kenya Secondary School Heads Association (KESHA), raising questions in Parliament over the organisation’s legal status and the use of public funds.
Luanda MP Dick Maungu, who chairs the National Assembly’s Public Investments Committee (PIC) on Education and Governance, said some schools had paid KESHA as much as Sh6 million. Maungu said the committee wants to establish whether KESHA, which serves as a welfare and professional organisation for secondary school principals, is legally entitled to receive funds from public institutions and whether the money it receives is subject to audit by the Auditor-General. “The other issue that has come out very clearly is that most of these schools contribute money to an organisation known as Kenya Secondary School Heads Association,” Maungu said.
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