To the Kenyan university sector, the year 2024 remains a difficult one. The sector has moved from one crisis to another. The strike by academic and non-academic staff at the beginning of September is still fresh in our minds while the row between the government and the students and guardians over the new funding model is still brewing and vicious. Mind you those are not the only problems bedeviling the higher institutions of learning. The latest crisis, which is the subject of this article, is the October 3 indefinite closure of Moi University.
The closure of this second-oldest Kenyan university is symptomatic of deepening crises that continue to afflict university education. Unless we change ways of doing things, particularly in university governance and resource use, the state of affairs is bound to worsen.
The University Vice Chancellor Prof Isaac Kosgey announced the suspension of teaching and learning on October 3, 2024. “Following a special meeting, the Senate announces the closure of the university with immediate effect…The University Council and Management are working to ensure that the university operations resume as soon as possible,” he said in the memo to all students.
For beginners, this year, 2024, marks the 40th anniversary since the establishment of Moi University. It augurs badly to see the university marking four decades when it is in a state of paralysis.
Indefinite Closure
The closure which Prof Kosgey in his memo refers to as “suspension of teaching and learning” until further notice is a culmination of a consistent failure by the public university to meet its basic financial obligations, which include wages and salaries for its workers, whom it owes arrears of nearly 12 months.
The academic and non-academic staff had gone on a prolonged staff strike, which left students unattended resulting to widespread unrest. The current university debts are estimated at Ksh 8 billion.
Also Read: Moi University Closed Indefinitely
Once a symbol of Kenya’s efforts to expand higher education access, Moi varsity finds itself at the crossroads of total financial collapse. The current reality is unfathomable to thousands of Kenyans for whom Moi University has been their school of choice during the four decades of its existence.
In addition, the university’s popularity is exemplified by its huge enrolment which currently stands at about 50,000 students. It is only rivalled by Kenyatta University and the University of Nairobi in terms of student numbers and staff establishment.
It has produced tens of thousands of graduates since its inception. It has also nurtured many other universities that once comprised its constituent colleges, among them Maseno, Rongo, Karatina, and Kisii.
How financial misdeeds brought Moi university to its knees
So how did Moi University find itself in this pathetic quagmire? The truth is that the financial crisis confronting the university is the result of years of corruption, mismanagement, and wasteful spending, all of which have pushed such a great school to the brink of collapse. If it was a public or private limited company, it possibly would be facing a wind-up cause.
Due to poor financial decisions and apparent weak leadership practices, Moi University has continually earned adverse queries from government auditors from year to year. Salient among such include the reported siphoning of Kshs 7 billion from the National Bank of Kenya account three years ago and the latest query as to why the University keeps on pumping money to its perpetual loss-making subsidiary, Rivatex Company Limited.
Other often cited problems said to have impacted on it are shady procurements, allegedly inflated project costs, and unchecked administrative expenditure that over the years kept on draining the school coffers dry. Problems of a bloated workforce, ghost workers and unregulated hiring are other mentioned maladies.
Individual lecturers are owed millions
This writer knows several individuals who served as visiting faculty there and whom the institution failed to pay for services worth several millions of shillings. There are tales by visiting faculty on how some of their unpaid dues were irregularly claimed by shadowy individuals.
In recent days, the university management was queried by a parliamentary committee about the rationale of spending Kshs 30 million to erect a gate for the Rivatex Company at a time when the institution was highly indebted and owing staff huge arrears.
Some of the issues affecting Moi University are not unique to it. For instance, the effect of unplanned expansion which added to the problem of massive debt remains a widespread challenge for several public universities. The reduced and delayed flow of funds from the national government to has impacted many universities and not only Moi.
Also Read: Moi University Staff Apologizes to Former Vice Chancellor Chased Away by Local Leaders
It is also instructive that when the government changed the university admission policies in 2014 whereby it allowed all form four leavers with C plus and above an automatic transition to the university, the move led to the collapse of the lucrative parallel programs that normally attracted thousands of privately sponsored students to the major public universities.
What’s more, the impact of this policy change on the revenue flow of the universities has been felt to date. However, some observers attribute this problem to a lack of sound strategic planning by the universities.
Odds facing Moi University are several. Sometimes it has been indicted by the National Cohesion and Integration Commission for flouting standards of ethnic balance in staff recruitment. A peek at the list of the institution’s staff reflects skewness that NCIC has called out in some of its previous reports.
Politicians blundered by ejecting former VC Prof Ayiro
Political interference by politicians has also impacted negatively on the university. Many Kenyans still can recall the controversial manner in which politicians from Uasin Gishu county engineered the ejection of former Vice Chancellor Prof Laban Ayiro from the institution a few years ago.
His rejection had nothing to do with non-performance; in any case, the academician is a guru on management and leadership. All that the politicians wanted was to have a local head of the institution. Prof Ayiro has since moved to Daystar University where there are all indications are that that institution is happy with him at the helm.
It remains to be seen how Moi University administration and by extension the Ministry of Education would turn around the financial fortune of the institution. As they do that, perhaps issues of depoliticizing the institution, overhauling its administration and management, rationalizing staff, and rooting for new innovation strategies should comprise part of the priority agenda in any recovery plan.
We cannot afford to see Kenyan second oldest public varsity go down. That it sits on 3,000 acres that can serve as a great field for sustainable innovations, means efforts to give it a new lease of life are to start on a point of strength.
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