SHOCK as parents discover “Wangamati Scholarship” is a scam, Assembly blames Re-Launch

In summary:

• Case One
• Case Two
• Pledge Wangamati won’t keep
• Rejoinder
• #iKUWEiKUWE Corner

A section of Bungoma Members of the County Assembly are up in arms following an attempt by governor Wangamati to hive-off Kshs. 1,000,000 from each ward’s bursary kitty in favor of filling in the gap on the County Scholarship programme. The irate MCAs stood their ground to the point the County CEO had to tone down the slice to Kshs. 200,000/= from each ward, a move that has not gone down with the Budget committee which has been asking all the hard questions with no or unsatisfactory answers.

The scholarship kitty has an allocation of 48million this FY 2021/2

The Scholarship programme has been characterized by stinking corruption at the selection stage, fraud and outright conmanship at implementation as parents and students are duped only to find out when it’s too late that it isn’t what they thought it would be. This has attracted huge debts as a result.

Ill highlight two of the many cases at our disposal;

Case One:

Justine Matanda mother to Andrew Mukewa informs ikuweikuwe.com that her son was awarded a County Scholarship nicknamed “Wangamati Scholarship” in Yr 2020 where the County Government of Bungoma paid the initial Kshs. 21,000/= via a cheque on 14.01.2020 enabling him to join St. Anthony Boys High School – Kitale.

No other payment has been made until this shocking letter date 7^th Feb 2021 that announced that the Wangamati scholarship program wasn’t gonna take full responsibility of the student’s fees. This meant that the parent will have to pay the accrued fee amounting to Kshs. 75,270/=.

Andrew and his brother come from Ndengelwa area a stone throw away from governor Wangamati’s Nalutiri home and are raised by a single mum following the demise of their father in 2013. The mother who is a mama mboga was relieved when the County Government announced and paraded her son as a qualified candidate of the County Scholarship.

She reckons that after form one first-term break the County did not advance any more fee payment to date but has issued promissory note to pick up fee payment from .

This year, Bungoma county has picked 2,000 students (joining Form 1 in National and Extra County schools) on the Governor’s Scholarship, bringing to a total of 3,150 number of students on the Governor’s scholarship.

~ Wangamati @Webuye re-launch ~

After numerous attempts, she managed to meet the CEM Education Dr. Mayeku who informed her name was removed by either the MCA or Ward Admin. This turned out to be a fat lie for upon going back to the ward offices with the same info, Andrew’s mum was informed of roles of each office. Its at this time that once a student is put on the Scholarship programme, no one at their level can access and/or tamper with the beneficiary list. Her MCA then advised her to seek the governor’s attention as she was given a contact to one Bichachi Francis 0724095448, 0768914952 and 0115301889 who was expected to facilitate a meeting with governor. He turned out to be of no use.

At one-point Governor Wangamati visited Bukembe West ward. She tried to access him in vain for she was blocked by the security detail as if clear instructions had been issued to that effect.

Her child having been send home has up to now not received any assistance from the County apart from the promissory note that was rejected by the school. She pleads for well-wishers to assist her educate her son.

Case Two:

Anthony Wamoka Wanyonyi a Form 3 student at St. Josephs Boys – Kitale and a resident of Lwandanyi ward has also been chased from school under the same circumstances with a fee balance of Kshs.108.554/= (One hundred and eight thousands five hundred and fifty-four only)

A guardian to Anthony in anger said “Hii scholarship is fake… ni ukora”

ikuweikuwe.com has established that; Most of the said beneficiaries did NOT get funding from “Wangamati Scholarship” kitty but did get their education paid for by the Ward special – bursary kitty… This greatly affected ward bursary allocations and therefore disbursement.

Rejoinder;

An official at the Education office however indicates that the Kshs. 200,000 is meant for special bursaries

#iKUWEiKUWE Corner;

• There many miscalculated turns the County made that are blamed for this mess but the most notable one is exorbitance exercised at the re-launch of the prog. ikuweikuwe.com has established that the theft exercised during the Scholarship re-launch has far reaching consequences that are affecting implementation of other programmes like Scholarship… The executive itself has been shy to table a report on the event as the budget committee insists that they wont allocate any more funds unless they account what what they previously got.