Parliamentary Committee on Education tells Schools to employ Qualified Procurement officers

The National Assembly Public Investment Committee on Governance and Education Dick Maungu and other Committee Members address the Press in Kisumu today after examining Auditor's General report for some C 1 Schools in Nyanza and Western Kenya regions-Photo and Story By Dickson Odhiambo.

 

September 3, 2026.

 

Parliamentary Committee on Education tells Schools to employ Qualified Procurement officers

Schools across the country have been told to employ qualified Procurement Officers to help on the issues of procuring goods and services within the Public institutions.

 

The National Assembly Public Investment Committee on Governance and Education says it is true the law is also very clear on Procurement hence the need by various secondary schools to consider employing qualified Procurement officers to help them on such issues.

 

The Public Investment Committee on Governance and Education Chairman Dick Maungu Oyugi says the Public Procurement and Disposal Act is very clear as to how public institutions must procure.

 

Maungu says it is unfortunate that some of our schools procure as if they are procuring for their private entity.

 

 Speaking after the Committee’s first days examination of Six Public National schools in Nyanza and Western held in Kisumu, the Chairman said that procedure can only be done by having a qualified procurement specialist who can actually be able to do what is supposed to be done.

 

 “Maybe a day school in the local may not have one In that case; they may use the sub-county, the one for the ministry. But it is important that a school, for example, a national school, that you have a head of procurement that can be able to procure and to follow what is supposed to be. Because some of the things happening here, it is all about procurement issues,” Maungu says.

 

 The Committee Chair says another issue that has cropped up during the examination is that most of these schools contribute money to an organization known as Kenya Secondary School Heads Association.

 

 “As you are aware, this is a club, or rather a member, a wealthier group of principals of high schools. for example, the first school we did had about six million paid to Kesha.

The other had about five million paid to Kesha.  What we are asking, these are billions, if you convert them into all the schools in the country, that go into Kesha. And we want to find out that Kesha is a recipient of public money, and maybe the activities they are doing are not audited by the Auditor General Office,” the Chair says.

 

He has said that's an issue the committee want to dig deeper, and it will be moving on to some of the leadership of Kesha, so that they may know under what entity are they operating under.

 

He adds that the other issue that has come out very clearly is the issue of books, adding that they are shocked that some of these schools have excess books.

 

“Yet we know very well that some schools in this country don't receive enough books in terms of the learner book ratio. We have seen a school, for example, that received 400, and that's six extra books. The question is, when you receive an extra, the extra numbers, meaning there's a school somewhere,  and maybe in my constituency, which is Rwanda here, where schools don't have books  So we should also be calling KICD to tell us, why do they supply excess books to some schools, when other schools continue having no books?,” he further adds.