Rift Valley Regional Commissioner George Natembeya announces government shut down of 15 schools in Mau Forest from Monday when schools open

Gov't shuts down 15 schools; students to look for alternative by Monday when schools open

Tony Mukere

August 29, 2019 4:47 PM

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Rift Valley Regional Commissioner George Natembeya announces government shut down of 15 schools in Mau Forest from Monday when schools open

The Kenyan Government on Thursday announced it had shut down fifteen schools which were irregularly built inside the Mau Forest .

Rift Valley Regional Commissioner George Natembeya directed pupils in the affected schools to look for alternative institutions by Monday when schools re-open.

Natembeya said the schools had thrived under the patronage of corrupt politicians from the leaders who even circumvented the law to have the government fund the schools which were built on protected forest land.

"The community centres or the so called schools are actually not registered because they have no land documents,” the county commissioner stated.

Teacher Service Commission

Although the teachers in the 15 schools are not employed by the state through the Teacher’s Service Commission (TSC), it also emerged that they had irregularly been built through taxpayer funds.

Natembeya said at least Sh60 million had been spent on the centres, explaining that funding is done by attaching each of the irregular schools to legitimate public schools outside the forest.

“A school like Keroboni, the claim is that it is mentored by Triangle Primary School, a government registered school.”

“So, Triangle Primary School is registered with TSC teachers but again it is mentoring another school inside the forest. Corrupt state officials would allocate funds to the fully registered schools and then personally go and direct the heads of schools to divert the funds to build structures in these centres,” the commissioner said.

Natembeya is overseeing the second phase of the controversial eviction of those occupying the Mau Forest protected areas.

The list of the affected schools are:

1. Lelechwet

2. Kiroboni

3. Senetwet

4. Kapislibwo

5. Kitoben

6. Indiani

7. Kabarak

8. Noosagami

9. Chorwet

10. Ogiglgwe