Treasury wired Sh500 million in emergency funding to financially troubled Moi University to help ease a biting cash crunch, months before the piling woes forced the institution to issue a redundancy notice to staff.
Parliamentary disclosures show that the cash was transferred to Moi University on January 14, 2025, under the provisions of Article 233 of the Constitution, as teaching and non-teaching staff downed tools over delayed salaries.
“Moi University shortfall in personnel emolument and operation and maintenance approved,” the liaison committee of the National Assembly said in a note confirming the payout.
Article 233 of the Constitution allows the National Treasury to spend money on emergencies and then seek approval from Parliament. However, Parliament’s nod for any such spending is required within two months of the initial withdrawal of funds.
If Parliament is not sitting at the time, or if it is sitting but adjourns before the approval is sought, the consent must be sought within two weeks of the next sitting.
Treasury documents show that the Sh500 million was to plug a shortfall in salaries, allowances, and cash for day-to-day running of the university.
The emergency funding came in the same month that the government fired the university council and appointed a fresh one to oversee the institution’s restructuring.
The new council followed a directive from President William Ruto as the varsity’s funding crisis deepened, threatening to cripple Kenya’s second oldest public university.
Founded in 1984, Moi University had recorded steady growth but has seen its fortunes take a hit in the past decade amid a drop in the number of students enrolling for parallel degree programmes and those on government sponsorship.
For example, student enrolment fell by more than half to 18,800 in the year that ended June 2024 from 42,670 in the year to June 2017.
Student capitation to the university was slashed to Sh1.71 billion in the year to June 2024 from Sh3.43 billion a year earlier. Like other public universities, Moi University is also grappling with high pending bills ranging from unremitted statutory deductions to unpaid taxes.
Moi University received a major boost earlier this year when the National Treasury increased the institution’s budget for the current financial year by Sh1.8 billion to Sh6.44 billion, largely to help pay salaries and allowances. The increase was made through the supplementary budget.
The pending bills by universities grew from Sh60.6 billion in 2023 to the current Sh72 billion, in what has turned out to be a major concern for the Treasury, which is coming under increased pressure to bail out the institutions.
But Moi University’s move to cut the employee numbers suffered a blow with the lobby for university teaching staff saying that the redundancy plan has no fiscal or legal justification.
The Universities Academic Staff Union, in a letter to the acting Vice-Chancellor Kiplagat Kotut, says that the planned redundancy will violate provisions of the Employment Act and the standards and guidelines for university academic programmes that are issued by the Commission for University Education.
