Embu Governor Cecily Mbarire has thrown her weight behind the push to streamline government bursaries to curb cases of duplication and multiple-funding of some students.
She said the uncoordinated issuance of various bursaries has seen some students cunningly or by default secure multiple allocations locking out other needy cases.
Governor Mbarire said the various bursary schemes should be centrally coordinated where data of all students is stored and can be fished out for clarification purposes to get rid of such irregularities.
‘We need to have a way of bringing all these bursary programmes together in a way that each speaks to the other,’ she said
She said by doing so, it will be easy to know who has benefited from which fund to avoid cases of duplication and ensure every child gets a chance to get the much needed education.
Speaking on Friday while disbursing county bursary cheques amounting to Sh. 100 million to school heads for 35, 188 students across the county, the Governor proposed adoption of
National Education Management Information System (NEMIS) as a reference platform.
‘The government should devise a way of bringing these funds together through NEMIS to identify which child has benefited and from which scheme,’ she said.
She at the same time called on school heads to ensure they do receipting for the money received for bursaries to avoid audit queries.
‘There is no way for the county to prove that there is money we spent on bursary if we don’t get documentary evidence in the form of a receipt,’ she said.
She gave the school head two weeks to file the receipts while cautioning those who will fail to do so, that their schools will be denied bursaries in the next financial year.
Source: Kenya News Agency