Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu has refuted claims made by Opposition Leader Raila Odinga that his ministry canceled a UK firm’s exam printing contract, leading to the irregularities witnessed in the 2023 KCPE (Kenya Certificate of Primary Education) results.
Appearing before the education committee, Machogu opposed Odinga’s claims that the exam printing contract of a UK-based company was terminated and awarded to a Mombasa Road-based firm.
He said, “We have not terminated anybody’s contract. Each and every year a contract is made.”
The cabinet secretary defended his ministry saying Kenya is as competent as any other country to print its examination papers, adding that due process was adhered to when awarding the exams printing tender.
He however explained that the company contracted to manage the QR code used for relaying and accessing the KCPE results did not conform to the KNEC standards, which caused candidates to have problems getting their results.
He added, “As a CS I have learnt lessons because basically you can see as a ministry everything was right. Somebody we can call an outsider was given the contract but did not really conform and do to the required standard. Moving forward when we release the KCSE examinations, we will not be able to make use of the same service provider.”
On December 6, Odinga addressed the press regarding the mistakes witnessed in the 2023 KCPE results.
He claimed that the ministry of education terminated the license of a UK-based printing firm for refusing to give kickbacks. The printing contract was then given to Mombasa Road-based firm that outsourced the exam printing services from a company based in India, where the exams were printed in a hurry.
Odinga believes that the sudden change of printer and having them printed on short notice is responsible for the issues witnessed in KCPE results.
He also added that “The situation was worsened by the fact that in return for kickbacks, the procurement for relaying the results to the public using the shortcode 40054 was also taken away from the original provider and awarded on short notice and corruptly to a company that does not have the capacity to handle the same.”
Machogu has also disclosed plans to create a new means to relay exam results in addition to or as an alternative to the SMS avenue.
Discussion about this post