MPs to Question TSC Over Hardship Zone Criteria and Housing Allowance Disparities

MPs have summoned the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) to explain why teachers in Mwala and Kalama sub-counties, in Machakos County, are not among those enjoying hardship allowances.

The summons, by the Public Petitions Committee, follows a petition by the Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET), which sought to know why the two sub-counties are not in the list of hardship areas. 

The petition, which was presented by Mwala MP Vincent Musyoka, followed an uproar as teachers complained that some places they feel should be considered hardship areas have been omitted, and this has caused the educators a lot of pain.

During the Tuesday, June 10, session, the lawmakers agreed to invite TSC to shed more light on the matter following the petition that seeks clarification on why Mwala and Kalama sub-counties are excluded from the list of hardship areas, despite facing similar challenges as neighbouring zones that qualify.

The committee chairperson and Kitui West MP Edith Nyenze resolved that officials from TSC and the Salaries Remuneration Commission should be invited to explain the criteria used to determine placed considered hardship areas and which ones are not.

"As a Committee, we will meet TSC leadership and even the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) to find out the criteria they use to categorise areas as hardship zones," MP Nyenze said.

Reportedly, teachers in the two sub-counties are denied hardship allowances, even though they are surrounded by regions that are already gazetted as hardship areas.

Mwala is geographically located in the midst of Yatta, Kitui Rural and Mbooni East, which are all hardship zones," MP Musyoka said. 

"In Kalama sub-county, teachers in 33 public secondary schools are entitled to hardship allowance, while nine schools have been left out."

Besides Musyoka, Mavoko MP Patrick Makau raised similar concerns in his constituency, claiming that the teachers from his constituency did not receive similar house allowances as stipulated for schools in urban neighbourhoods.

"It's unfair for a teacher in Mlolongo in my constituency to get a lower house allowance than their colleagues in the nearby Embakasi South constituency. The two areas are in the same Nairobi metropolitan region," MP Makau stated.

The issue of hardship areas allocation has been brewing for quite a while, since the release of the 2019 inter-agency technical committee report that proposed that some areas be declassified as hardship areas, as they had been significantly improved since devolution.

On May 11, the Education Cabinet Secretary, Julius Ogamba, promised to fight for the teachers, appealing to MPs to back his efforts and pass legislation dictating that if one ministry is considered a hardship area, all other civil servants in the area are also to receive hardship allowances.

"You are going to help us in Parliament. Let us harmonise and know that if it is a hardship area for one ministry, it is a hardship area for another ministry," he stated.

129 subcounties risk being struck from the list of hardship areas, meaning that teachers and other civil servants working in those areas would lose their hardship allowances.