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Here is what you need to know to get up to speed with today’s happenings.

JSS crisis

As the education sector grapples with the ongoing strike at Junior Secondary Schools (JSS), a new battlefront has opened with the National Treasury slashing monies meant for JSS and school feeding programmes.

The Members of Parliament who sit in the education committee chaired by Tinderet MP Julius Melly were shocked to learn that the Treasury had reduced capitation to JSS by a whopping Ksh15.4 billion, thus affecting about one million learners.

The lawmakers also heard that the entire budget of Kshh4.9 billion meant for the school feeding programme had been done away with, thus putting at risk the lives of 4.5 learners who depend on school meals to remain in school.

The budget cut for JSS is the latest setback for a sector that has been paralysed by an ongoing strike by teachers.

Schools reopened on Monday after the Easter long holiday, on a day Junior Secondary teachers held demonstrations across the country to protest the Teachers Service Commission’s (TSC) refusal to employ them on permanent and pensionable terms.

Linturi’s fake fertiliser saga

The dark cloud hanging over Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Mithika Linturi looks far from over, as some MPs are calling for another investigation over claims there was bribery during the mini-committee investigation.

The CS was set free by an 11-member committee, which was formed to investigate whether Linturi had a hand in the buying and distribution of the fake fertliser saga.

In particular, the MPs demanded that the Powers and Privileges Committee as well as other investigative agencies such as the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) be seized of the matter as it had put Parliament to shame.

The committee is chaired by National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetangula, and its main function is to examine every matter involving breach of privilege of the House or of the Members of any Committee thereof referred to it by the House or by the Speaker.

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