The National Assembly has raised fresh concerns over what lawmakers describe as entrenched mismanagement and worrying financial instability across several public learning institutions, with Maasai Mara Technical & Vocational College and Masinde Muliro University of Science & Technology (MMUST) emerging as the latest in a growing list under scrutiny.
The concerns were flagged by the Public Investments Committee on Governance and Education (PIC), chaired by Bumula MP Wanami Wamboka, whose team has been combing through financial records and audit reports of colleges and universities in recent weeks.
During one of the hearings, MPs slapped a Ksh500,000 fine on a procurement officer from Ziwa Technical Training Institute after determining that he had knowingly submitted misleading information — an offence under the Conflict of Interest Act, 2025. The lawmakers invoked Standing Order 191A, making him personally liable.
The officer, who has served the institution for nearly ten years, struggled to explain gaps in financial documentation, including missing evidence for the 2017/2018 audit cycle. At one point, he attributed the gaps to the deaths of two former principals, but MPs dismissed the explanation, insisting that “public institutions cannot run on memory records must exist.”
One of the most troubling findings at Ziwa was an M-Pesa overdrawing of Ksh9 million, which members said pointed to serious internal control failures. The committee directed the institute to tighten financial management immediately.
The scrutiny widened on Wednesday when officials from the Maasai Mara Technical & Vocational College were summoned. MPs expressed frustration when key staff failed to appear, despite the institution facing ongoing audit queries.
At MMUST, auditors uncovered student fee arrears exceeding Ksh800 million, a figure that raised fresh questions about how the university would recover the money and keep operations running.
The institution has already proposed writing off Ksh23 million, while another Ksh464 million remains tied up in postgraduate accounts belonging to students who have been unreachable for more than seven years.
MPs urged the university to fast-track the rollout of the MMUST HELB Revolving Fund by December 31, 2025, to boost debt recovery. They also recommended that debts belonging to deceased or untraceable students be written off.
Elsewhere, lawmakers revealed that another institution was holding Ksh46 million in uncollected fees and raised concerns over a past staffing imbalance where 120 of 130 employees came from a single ethnic group.
The latest summons come just a week after the University of Nairobi was put on the spot for failing to clear Ksh7.4 million in rent owed to the Kenya Medical Training College (KMTC), a debt pending for seven years.
KMTC officials told a separate parliamentary committee that unresolved debts including UoN’s arrears have strained basic operations such as maintenance and service delivery.
With several institutions now under the microscope, MPs are signalling a tougher stance on governance, insisting that taxpayers must be protected from what they described as “a dangerous culture of carelessness” in public colleges and universities.
