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{
    "id": 583530,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/583530/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 174,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Wetangula",
    "speaker_title": "The Senate Minority Leader",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 210,
        "legal_name": "Moses Masika Wetangula",
        "slug": "moses-wetangula"
    },
    "content": " Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, thank you for the opportunity. First, I want to thank the House as a whole for standing together yesterday in a bipartisan manner on the matter of teachers. I particularly want to thank the Chairman of the Committee on Education, who spoke very well. Everything that he said yesterday is the complete opposite of what he has been given to come and read to the House. My first question is whether he believes in what he has read to the House because, yesterday, he was extremely eloquent, forceful and purposeful in what he said. This statement says in part, that the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) has confirmed that the salaries for teachers and other civil servants had already been harmonized. This is a false statement and the Chairman of the Committee told us as much yesterday. I brought here information and statistics that a junior clerk at Jogoo House in the Ministry of Education earns three times more than a teacher at the same level out there in the field. The highest level of a headteacher; the Principal of Alliance High, Mang’u High School, Maseno School and in other big schools, earn a salary of Kshs109,000 maximum. That is why this statement about harmonization is false. The secretary to the Teachers’ Service Commission (TSC) who is, in fact, in every respect at the intellectual level a little lower than those senior teachers, earn Kshs526,700 per month. This is more than three times than the highest paid teacher. Is that harmonization of salaries? Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I want the Chairman to clarify whether he believes in this statement that has been bandied over a period of time that the wage for the public servants would be a heavy burden to the country, when we have said and we have statistics to show, that if the increment of 50 per cent and 60 per cent as directed by the highest court in the land is met, it will occasion an extra expenditure of only Kshs1,330,000,000 per month aggregating to Kshs17 billion per annum. By any stretch of the imagination, that cannot destabilize our budget. More importantly, is the Chairman satisfied that the Executive, particularly the exhibition of arrogance that we have been seeing from TSC; issuing threats upon threats to teachers and the unhelpful arrogance exhibited by the Cabinet Secretary for Education in this matter, that they are helping the cause of resolving the stand-off between the teachers and the Government? Each Member here represents a rural constituency apart from Nairobi. Even in Nairobi there are so many pockets of what is worse than rural constituencies where children are suffering because teachers are on strike. We want a solution. If the Chairman is not satisfied with this answer, and I believe he is not because we know his thinking from yesterday’s debate, could he tell us what will be done to get this matter resolved, once and for all? The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}