The projects which include lecture halls, hostels, libraries, laboratories and dining halls have become an eyesore, abandoned midway due to lack of State funding.
So dire is the situation that even ongoing projects are accumulating debt following budget cuts and are in danger of joining the stalled portfolio.
State capitation to public universities has been on the decline, following a rapid increase of the institutions from eight in 2012, to 32 in 2016 and to 37 currently.
The rapid expansion of public universities in the last three decades has left the institutions with tens of stalled infrastructure projects which are now proving a nightmare to complete after gobbling up billions of shillings.
The projects which include lecture halls, hostels, libraries, laboratories and dining halls have become an eyesore, abandoned midway due to lack of State funding.
So dire is the situation that even ongoing projects are accumulating debt following budget cuts and are in danger of joining the stalled portfolio.
Latest data from the Ministry of Education shows pending bills by the universities nearly doubled in a span of one year to Sh62 billion, a figure that increases monthly.
Funding for universities has been hit hard by the sharp decline of students enrolling for parallel degree programme courses over the past four years after tighter KCSE examination standards meant that fewer candidates achieve the basic score for university admission.
State capitation to public universities has been on the decline, following a rapid increase of the institutions from eight in 2012, to 32 in 2016 and to 37 currently.
The Treasury has allocated the state department of University Education Sh5.4 billion against a resource request of Sh11.1 billion for its development expenditure in the year starting July.
The priority for the government, for now, is keeping the institutions afloat, with debate on how to revive stalled projects hardly featuring.
“We should consider bailouts for university education, like what has been done for Kenya Airways,” Higher Education PS Simon Nabukwesi told the National Assembly Education committee recently.
The stalled project problem was first seen during the Daniel arap Moi’s regime, when four universities were given charters between 1984 and 2000, and existing facilities needed expansion to cater for additional student numbers.
The University of Nairobi (UoN) is stuck with a student hostel project at its lower Kabete campus that started in 1990 and stalled at 57.7 percent completion after gobbling up Sh450 million.
Similarly, Moi University’s hostel cafeteria and graduation plaza whose construction started in January 1990 stalled at 35 and 43 percent respectively after Sh115.2 million was spent.
The same script plays out at Egerton University, where a Sh560 million Agriculture Laboratories Complex that broke ground in April 1990 stalled at 31 percent on failed government funding.
President Mwai Kibaki’s era, which marked the high tide of charter awards for public universities, also resulted in a number of abandoned projects.
These include a Sh38.8 million gymnasium building at Multimedia University which was started in August 2010, and the Sh1.1 billion proposed school of pharmacy at UoN which was started in 2011 and abandoned at 16 percent completion.
The same goes for the sewerage project at Maseno University started in January 2012 and abandoned at 27 percent completion due to lack of funding, but not before soaking up Sh16 million in taxpayer money.
Fast forward to the Jubilee regime, the story remains the same— with the latest being the asbestos removal and roof replacement project at Murang’a University of Science and Technology that has stalled at 17 percent, having consumed Sh1.7 million out of the projected cost of Sh10 million.
The construction of a Sh20 million perimeter wall at the Meru University of Science and Technology that started in 2017 has also stalled at 31 percent, having already taken up Sh6.3 million.
Similarly, construction of a Sh233 million physical science lab at Egerton University that commenced in 2015 stalled at nine percent. About Sh21.4 million had been spent on the project when contractors moved out of site.
But perhaps what is more worrying is the fact that as time goes by, the list of stalled projects will grow longer because universities are still rolling out new ones while turning a blind eye to the incomplete works littering their compounds.
Most of the ongoing projects have their completion date set for 2023, but this is likely to remain a pipe dream considering the pending bills and funding hitches that have made it a struggle to run even basic academic programmes.
New projects include the construction of hostels at Murang’a University, construction of Egerton University’s ultra-modern library and the construction of a library annex at Moi University.
On the other hand, construction of a tuition block at Turkana University has accumulated huge pending bills and unpaid certificates with the Education Ministry now appealing to the National assembly to approve additional funding to the project.
As this unfolds, a number of universities are getting jittery as they race against time to fulfil requirements by the Commission for University Education (CUE) for constituent colleges.
Constituent colleges require more infrastructure to enable them meet CUE’s set standards and the projects are set for completion in the financial year starting July.
Gatundu University College, Koitalel Arap Samoei University College, Bomet University College, Tom Mboya University College and Kaimosi University College are some of the institutions currently constructing administration blocks and lecture theatres.
The project which commenced in 2017 has been implemented at a snail-pace due to inadequate resources in the Higher Education sub sector.
“Implementation of capital projects will be derailed due to non-provision of adequate funds,” Dr Nabukwesi told MPs in February during discussions on the 2022 Budget Policy Statement.
Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu noted that the public universities are technically insolvent—have liabilities that exceed their assets—casting doubt on their ability to sustain operations.
Her sentiments were echoed by the PS when he asked MPs to consider the bailout request for universities.
“Most of the universities are currently insolvent as they cannot meet statutory obligations such as Pay As YOu Earn, deductions to KRA and pension funds,” he said.
Taxpayers will have to bear the burden of bailing out the institutions from the financial pit, if Parliament approves the request.
According to the 2018-2020 National Education Sector Strategic Plan, this growth has not been matched with adequate funding to support infrastructure development, and the reduced number of new admissions is not helping efforts to generate enough revenue to cover costs.
The latest data from the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS) shows Kenyan universities were left with 38,973 unfilled slots after some candidates who sat the national entrance exams in 2020 failed to take up their admission offers.
The number of students who scored C+ and above in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education exam opted to join technical and vocational education and training institutions (TVETs) increased, an indication that technical courses are gaining popularity.
These empty slots in the universities mean that the pool of learners available for self-sponsored or Module II programmes has further shrunk which has a direct impact on the institutions’ finances.
