Africa-Press – Kenya. Former Bungoma governor Wycliffe Wangamati has trashed the current governor Ken Lusaka’s task force report saying it aims at tainting his name.
Governor Lusaka deployed three task forces. They are the education scholarship, human resource and pending bills audit task forces.
They were to assess the implementation of the Bungoma education scholarship funds, establish the status of the human resource and examine the eligibility of the pending bills.
Wangamati argues that implementation of the scholarship was done transparently and all students who have been benefiting from the kitty sat for their form four examinations and some are still in school.
The former governor noted that his administration allocated Sh400M towards the county scholarship kitty adding that before his exit from the office they had only spent Sh200m for the payment of fees for the beneficiaries.
Addressing the press on Monday at a hotel in Bungoma town, the former county boss affirmed that the process of vetting was vigorous and involved home visitations with the help of primary school heads.
He said some of the very needy cases who may not even know of the existence of the scholarships were flagged and guided to apply for the scholarships immediately after the release of the KCSE results.
Wangamati says that even in cases where some applicants gave false information, members of the public have often volunteered the information that necessitated double-checking.
“Without governor Lusaka’s taskforce giving a list of names of students classified as “underserving”, the wards they come from and the schools admitted to, it’s hard to vouch for the credibility of their findings,” Wangamati noted.
On claims that seven students had been transferred but their former schools continued to receive funds, Wangamati noted that the students apply for the scholarships based on the schools they are admitted to immediately following the release of the KCPE results.
However, the former governor said that several seek transfer to schools other than those admitted to.
He said when that happens, the county advises parents at the point of selection that they furnish the department of education with an admission letter to the new institution.
On governor Lusaka’s task force findings that the county paid fees for eleven students, whose fees had been fully paid by other sponsors, Wangamati said that when KCPE results are released, needy people apply for several scholarship opportunities available.
He added that usually, there was time to reconcile and compare notes with other entities, noting that the 5th cohort presented unique challenges due to the short period between the release of results, application, award of scholarships and reporting time to school.
Wangamati said that no Sh19m was lost. He termed the claim as the most outrageous and scandalous allegation.
“If the findings were not a hurried afterthought, the task force would have established that all the cases they refer to as ‘ghost students’ were in fact selected to those specific schools by the ministry of education’s Nemis system,” he said.
The former governor also said that the task force made careless and easy-to-spot mistakes where the taskforce got the fee structures of some schools wrong, giving an example of Cardinal Otunga Girls where he stated that the fees was Sh5,000 and not Sh45,000 as captured in the report.
He added that the report is no more than a shallow political script designed to achieve a selfish motive and to push an unfortunate narrative aimed at killing the scholarship scheme.
Wangamati called on governor Lusaka to stop the political witch-hunt and concentrate on delivering on his mandate and fulfilling his campaign promises to the people of Bungoma.
Speaking at St. James ACK Mapela church on Sunday governor Lusaka said that the taskforce reports are not aimed at witch-hunting but correcting the mistakes for future prosperity.
Wangamati added that he will also be issuing a comprehensive statement on the human audit report next week.
Wangamati said that he is ready to appear before the court and shed light on the allegations.
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