By Janet Nyamwamu
The National Assembly’s Decentralized Funds Accounts Committee has launched a fresh investigation into the management of bursary funds in Kajiado North Constituency.
The probe stems from the Auditor-General’s report on the 2016/2017 NG-CDF accounts, which revealed a significant batch of bursary cheques that remained unpresented and became stale after six months without being deposited.
This means that the funds effectively lapsed and may never have been utilized for their intended purpose of supporting needy learners.
Lawmakers expressed concern over the findings, describing them as disturbing and indicative of serious administrative failures that likely resulted in vulnerable children being denied access to education despite government money being allocated.
West Mugirango MP Stephen Mogaka, speaking during the committee session, emphasized that these funds exist to rescue children in financial crisis and rejected the official explanation that parents or beneficiaries simply failed to collect or present the cheques, arguing that the story did not add up given the desperation typically faced by families applying for such assistance.
The audit specifically highlighted unexplained bank balances and the absence of proper cash book extracts to demonstrate whether the value of the expired cheques had been reversed back into the constituency accounts as required.
Constituency fund officials maintained that the cheques had been issued toward the end of the financial year and turned stale because beneficiaries did not come forward to claim them or take them to schools.
However, MPs challenged this account, questioning how parents struggling enough to seek bursary support could suddenly disregard the money entirely.
Mogaka pointedly asked how such indifference could be plausible in the context of families unable to afford school fees.
Evidence presented to the committee indicated that some of the intended beneficiaries later dropped out of school, prompting sharp criticism from legislators who insisted that children are not voluntarily abandoning education but are instead being sent home for non-payment of fees.
They stressed that government bursary funds are designed as emergency interventions, and any delay or failure in disbursement directly undermines the programme’s core objective of keeping learners in school.
Suspicions of deliberate withholding or political manipulation surfaced during the heated discussions, with Mogaka directly pressing fund officials to provide assurances that constituency offices had not intentionally held onto the cheques rather than distributing them to the rightful recipients.
The substantial amount involved—exceeding Sh2 million—further fueled doubts among committee members, who argued that a sum of this magnitude could not reasonably be attributed to mere routine oversights or minor lapses.
Chaired by Mwingi Central MP Gideon Mulyungi, the committee has now ordered a comprehensive follow-up report from the officials, requiring them to identify the original list of bursary beneficiaries, clarify whether replacement cheques were ever issued after the originals expired, and establish who ultimately benefited from the funds once the stale cheques were cancelled.
Lawmakers, including Mogaka who formally moved for the matter to be re-examined, insisted that full accountability must be established, especially when education funding for vulnerable students is at stake, declaring that the issue could not be allowed to remain unresolved.
Legislators warned that persistent inefficiencies and delays in disbursement threaten to undermine government initiatives aimed at ensuring children remain in school.
The Decentralized Funds Accounts Committee is expected to revisit the constituency’s accounts once the requested additional documentation and previous committee resolutions are provided.