Mbadi Admits Govt Can’t Afford Full Sh22,000 Per Student, Shifts Blame On Parliament

National Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi has come out to clarify why public secondary school students are not receiving the full Sh22,000 capitation annually and he says the blame lies squarely with Parliament.

Speaking during a thanksgiving event in his Suba South backyard, Mbadi dismissed criticism over delays and shortfalls in capitation disbursements, revealing that the Treasury has never disbursed the full amount per student, not because of failure at his ministry, but due to budget constraints imposed by Parliament itself.

“We disbursed the entire amount that was approved in the budget. But it is not enough,” he stated. “What we give out is exactly what lawmakers allocated. So if every child is supposed to get Sh22,000 and the allocation gives us Sh17,000 per child, what more can we do?”

Under the government’s policy, secondary school students in day schools are meant to receive Sh22,000 a year from the state, while junior secondary learners get Sh15,000 and primary school pupils Sh1,400. However, Mbadi acknowledged that this has never been fully realized.

He accused MPs of hypocrisy, noting that many of them are publicly lamenting the underfunding of schools while privately slashing the education budget during the appropriation process.

“The latest budget we presented even had a higher capitation, but Parliament reduced it,” he added. “Then they come to the media asking why the money isn’t enough. Where do I get the difference?”

Mbadi also took the opportunity to correct what he termed a widespread misconception — that the free secondary school education programme was initiated by President Mwai Kibaki.

“Let’s be clear: Kibaki gave us free primary education. It was President Uhuru Kenyatta who rolled out free day secondary schooling through a subsidised model,” he said, noting that even during Kenyatta’s era, the Sh22,000 mark was never fully met.

He said schools often complain about receiving partial capitation because the expected Sh22,000 figure is simply not backed by actual allocations. “What is in the budget is what we give. The third term payment is pending, but what we’ve paid so far is everything we have.”

To help fix the chronic funding deficit, Mbadi proposed a radical shift: channeling 40 per cent of the NG-CDF bursary allocations estimated at Sh21 billion directly into the national capitation fund.

This, he argued, would eliminate the need for students to seek individual bursaries from their MPs.

“If we are really honest about helping every learner, let us pool this money together and distribute it equally,” he said.

“Why should a child’s chance at education depend on whether they come from a rich or generous constituency?”

He further proposed combining bursary resources from county governments, the NG-CDF, and the national Government Affirmative Action Fund (GAAF) into a unified pot for equitable disbursement.

With pressure mounting from parents and school heads, Mbadi assured that the Treasury is working to improve revenue collection to enable full capitation in the future.

But he warned that until Parliament backs such plans with adequate funding, the current shortfalls will persist.

“We must stop pretending that every child is getting Sh22,000. The truth is, we’re not there yet,” he said. “We need solutions, not finger-pointing.”