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Top court declines to block teachers pay, case due next week

Supreme Court Judge Jackton Ojwang' directed the commission to serve all parties in the case with the application and return to court next Tuesday when the hearing date of the application will be set/FILE

Supreme Court Judge Jackton Ojwang’ directed the commission to serve all parties in the case with the application and return to court next Tuesday when the hearing date of the application will be set/FILE

NAIROBI, Kenya, Sep 2 – The Supreme Court has declined to give a stay order to the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) to stop the payment of a salary increment awarded to teachers, pending the hearing of an application contesting it.

Supreme Court Judge Jackton Ojwang’ directed the commission to serve all parties in the case with the application and return to court next Tuesday when the hearing date of the application will be set.

“This application relates to a substantive appeal soon to be heard by the Court of Appeal. Guided by that certainty of the dispute settlement, I hereby order and direct that the application in question shall forthwith be served upon all the parties to the main appeal and a hearing date shall be taken before the registrar on Tuesday September 9 at 9am,” he stated.

Speaking outside the court premises, the Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET) Chairman Omboko Milemba described the application as a delay tactic by TSC which he says will not succeed.

“What the judge has said is that he is not giving any stay orders meaning that as we talk now, the teachers are still having an order to be paid between 50 and 60 percent. He has told the Teachers Service Commission to serve the parties meaning ourselves, KNUT and other parties and then we will come back to court on the 9th of this month,” he said.

His sentiments were echoed by KUPPET Secretary General Akelo Misori who stated that teachers will not be intimidated but will stay on the course of their strike.

“The work boycott continues because the teachers of this country have been provoked beyond measure by the Teachers Service Commission and government’s failure to pay what is due to the teachers of this country. In the circumstances, there are no two ways about it. It is up to the government to see sense,” he said.

The commission had filed the application on Tuesday while insisting that the government has no money to pay teachers.

The Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) lawyer Paul Muite described the move as insincere and stated that TSC was misleading Kenyans.

Muite told Capital FM News that the order by the court of appeal required that the teachers’ employer pay for the month of August using a total of Sh1.4 billion and not Sh17 billion.

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He insisted that TSC had the capability to pay the money from their Sh181 billion fund kitty awarded to them by Treasury.

The development came even as learning remain paralysed in public schools countrywide as the teachers strike entered its third day.

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