The Education Cabinet Secretary, Julius Ogamba, on Sunday, May 11, made a plea to the Members of Parliament concerning the contentious issue of some regions being on the cusp of being deregistered as hardship allowance, as per the 2019 inter-agency technical committee report on hardship area reclassification
Speaking in Laikipia, one of the counties which is on the list of counties at risk of being removed from the classification as a hardship area, Ogamba promised that his ministry would intervene.
He called on the MPs to back his efforts and pass legislation dictating that if one ministry is considered a hardship area, all other civil servants in the area are also to receive hardship allowances.
"You are going to help us in Parliament. Let us harmonise and know that if it is a hardship area for one ministry, it is a hardship area for another ministry," he stated.
"I will be coming to you guys to give us support in parliament so that we can do affirmative action."
The report seeks to remove 129 subcounties from the list, meaning that teachers and other civil servants working in those areas would lose their hardship allowances.
If implemented, civil servants will lose up to Ksh6 billion in allowances.
The teachers have since gone to court through the welfare association to stop the implementation of the report, terming it as discriminatory, as they had already been classified as a hardship area.
They are citing a lack of public participation and scientific validation before it was compiled.
Speaking to the Press on Tuesday, May 6, a Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET) Laikipia county representative refuted the report's assertion that the county's status had changed since devolution in 2013.
"As a representative of teachers in Laikipia County, I am shocked by the report by the Cabinet Secretary, Musalia Mudavadi, that the government wants to remove the hardship allowance for teachers and civil servants in Laikipia," he stated.
"This is a surprising proposal since whatever made Laikipia get classified as a hardship area is still ongoing. If it's the insecurity, it's still happening."
He further gave a recent example of a teacher in Laikipia North who had a bullet put on her head in a clear incident of insecurity in the county.
