Residents of Kajiado have been asked not to pay any money as facilitation fees for them to be awarded the County Schools Bursary Fund.
Speaking in his office today, CECM in-charge of Education and Vocational Training, Lenku Seki said those who were claiming that officers at the County Headquarters were demanding an upward of Ksh 2,000 as bribes for them to award bursaries were peddling unfounded rumors.
“ Our staff are very transparent in processing bursaries and I challenge any resident who has been asked for any form of facilitation fee to come forward and report,” he said.
The minister revealed that the manual processing system for bursary application was reverted to following a County Assembly resolution arising from complaints by some applicants over inaccessibility of Internet in their localities.
“ The Electronics Funds Transfer system that had been previously adopted faced a few technical challenges in its initial phases of implementation causing confusion between the beneficiaries, financial institutions and the department,” said Seki.
He said the school bursars and principals failed to reconcile bank transactions vis-a-vis the list of beneficiaries on time due to challenges in accessing the Internet; especially in the rural areas. This he added made the beneficiaries anxious with some claiming that there were no bursary funds in the accounts yet that was not the case.
“The department is keen on ensuring transparency in the bursary application and disbursement process and as such we have fully reverted to the manual application system to accommodate beneficiaries who cannot access the internet,” said Seki.
He asked residents to confirm the names of beneficiaries from the Sub County Ward offices, County Government offices as well as the Website.
The County Assembly through a House Resolution compelled the department of Education and vocational training to adopt the previously in use manual cheque disbursement system to remedy the chaos caused by the Controller of Budgets preferred Electronic Transfer of Funds that was deemed efficient.
The beneficiaries list is managed at the ward level through ward commitee. The County Assembly vowed to challenge the controller of budget directive through a legislative process that will see them amend the existing guideline
The last disbursement of Ksh 40M was effected in October last year marking a total of Ksh 80M disbursed for the FY 2017/18 alone.