Irate parents vow to disrupt governors’ forum over scholarship saga

A row is looming ahead of the 10th devolution conference set to kick-off today in Eldoret after hundreds of students who were set to travel to Finland and Canada threatened to disrupt the event due to alleged embezzlement of funds by some Uasin Gishu county government officials.

The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) has since commenced investigations into the saga which saw Sh837 million lost in mysterious circumstances.

 President William Ruto among other top government dignitaries is set to graze today’s occasion which will be held at Eldoret Sports Club.

 Uasin Gishu Governor Jonathan Bii (pictured)was yesterday in a final appeal to the irate students to remain calm as his administration look for an amicable solution to address their plight.

Lasting solution

 “Ile changamoto ya Finland na Canada, tunajua watoto na wazazi wetu wanapitia hali ngumu (We understand the agony our students and parents are going through). We are committed to finding a lasting solution to the problem. We feel for the parents, we feel for the youngsters. We want to urge them to cheer up, I know we are going to come up with an amicable solution to this problem,” said Bii during an interdenominational prayer meeting held at the county headquarters.

“Let’s sober up hoping that all things will work well for us. There is a lot of hope ahead. We have already secured a lot of visas for the students and they will soon travel to the universities of their choice. We urge them not to lose hope. It’s better for them to travel to fulfil their academic dreams and goals,” added Bii.

According to Bii, the taskforce he formed chaired by his Deputy John Barorot (pictured) to investigate the matter will soon table its final report and make recommendations on how the scholarship programme will be handled better.

The aggrieved students and parents had, last week, demanded to be refunded their money failure to which they threatened to disrupt the devolution conference.

Irate parents

Chanting ‘No Refund No Devolution Conference’ slogans, the irate parents and students last week held demonstrations and marched to the North Rift Ethics and Ant-Corruption Commission (EACC) offices in Eldoret where they presented their petition.