Days after the Malava MP, David Ndakwa, announced that the constituency bursary would not be forthcoming soon, the public has gone berserk over the issue, demanding answers from him.
Parents, locals, principals and other education stakeholders within the constituency have raised concerns after the MP declared that the money for the bursary had been redirected to pay off other development projects that the late MP Malulu Injendi had initiated.
Speaking in Malava, locals expressed their dismay over the issue, stating that the education of their children was at stake.
Led by Evans Luta, they poked holes in the whole saga, wondering why the MP has been moving around distributing bursary forms to residents and encouraging them to apply, with promises of paying full school fees for day scholars in the sub-county to enable them to stay in school.
In what could open a can of worms in Malava’s parliamentary leadership, the locals maintained that the MP should come clean on the issue, arguing that there was no way the leader could announce that he was going to issue bursaries to them, even assuring some students of receiving Ksh6,000, only to come out and allege that the bursary kitty was empty, having been misappropriated by the Malava NG-CDF office.
Residents also asked why the MP, upon assuming office, reshuffled the office bearers including the manager, whom he later attributed the misappropriation to, yet he was the fund manager during the period after the MP’s death, about 1.5 years ago.
At the same time, they questioned the conflicting information about the remaining amount in the kitty, with a section of information allied to the outgoing manager alleging that the remaining bursary in the kitty was Ksh15.3 million, contrary to what the MP announced — Ksh3.7 million — as the remaining bursary kitty when he took office.
Opening the Pandora’s box even further, the residents wanted to know why the MP did not first confirm the accounts before dismissing the manager and bringing in a new one, questioning the timing of the change of office and the announcement of the missing funds.
“You came to the office and started moving around telling people that there was enough bursary for everyone in the constituency, only to later state that the funds had been used to offset all the pending projects left behind by the late MP and start accusing the outgoing manager, when you had time to go through the books of accounts and hold him accountable if there were any imbalances before releasing him to another station,” he quizzed.
The constituents also questioned the manner in which the manager was transferred when the bursary money was not available, only for the new one to be ushered in and break the news that there was little money left for bursaries.
They wanted to know exactly how much was left in the kitty to clear the air as to who between the manager’s side and the MP was telling the truth, and demanded to know the whereabouts of the Ksh15 million said to be missing.
They stated that all was not well with the Malava leadership unless the whole truth, with facts, was unravelled to their satisfaction.
A parent, Emily Wafula, said she was shocked after realising that despite the MP requesting them to apply for bursaries, their children had been asked to go home and fetch school fees after the much-hyped bursary was declared not forthcoming in the near future.
Retired teacher and education supporter for partial and total orphans, Benson Malovi, called for the issue to be resolved quickly as it was affecting the education of both partial and total orphans, since they depended fully on the kitty.
He said many parents were affected by the delay, and students, especially from day schools, had already been sent home to collect fees.
He also observed that the MP might be receiving wrong advice from some of his associates working at the CDF office, warning that such moves could cost him politically and reduce his tenure to only a half-term MP.
The residents defended the outgoing fund manager against any wrongdoing and wondered why the MP had hurriedly transferred him if he knew there were issues with the kitty account.
“We sense malice and a cover-up in the way the manager, who professionally steered the constituency for over a year after the demise of the MP and who had been entrusted to finish all the pending projects, can now be transferred and accused of mismanaging funds, yet the figures being released by him are far higher than those being released by the MP. We want to know where the Ksh11 million disappeared to,” they demanded.
Earlier this week, the MP, through the press, announced that there would be a delay in the bursary allocation after the first allocation of the 2025/26 financial year NG-CDF budget for the constituency was used to pay off incomplete projects started by the late MP, affecting the Ksh50 million that had been set aside for bursaries.
The MP, however, said he will push for the release of the remaining tranche of cash, about Ksh60 million, of which 40 per cent will be directed to cover bursary issues.
He called on parents, school head teachers and principals not to send away students despite the delay as his office works to resolve the standoff.
