An audit report ordered by Education CS Amina Mohamed has put at least ten public universities on the spot over an approximated Sh10 Billion they have been subtracting from their employees’ salaries.
The report has found the higher learning institutions to have been deducting billions of shillings from the ever on strike lecturers and staff salaries without making remittances to respective organizations as legally provided for.
The findings have implicated the universities in illegally withholding their employees' money and it is suspected that a number of them have been spending the funds elsewhere at the expense of their staff’s welfare.
Top among the deduction are on money supposed to be channeled to the National Health Insurance Fund(NHIF), Retirement Benefits, Pay As You Earn(PAYE), saving and loan servicing to various banks and saccos.
A total of Sh481.3 Million has not been remitted in statutory, loan and members' deductions to saccos and banks. These payments are a mandatory employer obligation but six universities have defaulted.
Moi University (306,729,916), Egerton University (187,953.200) Technical University of Kenya (178,934,246) and the University of Nairobi (50,761.037) are the prime defaulters in this category. Others include Muranga, Kisii and Kenyatta Universities.
As if not enough, ten universities have put their workers at risk of being penalized by the Kenya Revenue Authority for failure to submit their PAYE deductions to a tune of Sh2.64 Billion.
Kenyatta University, UoN, and TUK have not paid out the highest amounts under this deductions. Others on the spot over PAYE cuts include Multimedia, Rongo, Egerton, Murang’a, Maasai Mara, Taita Taveta and Kaimosi Friends University College.
The University of Nairobi is the worst performing among 26 institutions that have been put on the radar over remittances to the pension scheme followed by JKUAT. UoN, as at June 30, 2017 was still holding on to Sh1.35 billion of its workers' pension money irregularly.
Universities that have defaulted in remittance of NHIF deductions are; Technical University of Kenya (Sh3.16 million), Egerton University (Sh695,600), Maasai Mara University (Sh215,400), Multimedia University of Kenya (Sh191,400) and Kaimosi Friends University College with only Sh19,200.
