Piece by: SHARON MWENDE

09 November 2022

• According to the former University of Nairobi Student leader, fee increment will amount to a felony.

• Owino said if the fee is increased, he will mobilise university students across the country and lead them to the State House and to every state lodge.

Babu Owino, the MP for Embakasi East, has declared that if university tuition increases, he is prepared to organize protests at the State House.

Even with the Higher Education Loans Board's assistance, he claimed that students are having difficulty raising the required payments (HELB).

"Any attempt to increase University Fees will be met with brute force that will be better imagined than experienced. I will personally lead demonstration to Statehouse should this nonsense persist," he tweeted on Tuesday.

According to the former University of Nairobi Student leader, fee increment will amount to a felony.

He warned that the move will mobilize university students across the country and lead them to the State House and to every state lodge.

He said it was time for the Kenya Kwanza government to put their manifesto to work.

"I remember you said very well that university fees will be free. And you said HELB will be a grant. What has happened all of a sudden?" he asked.

The legislator said the government should respect the value of education.

On Saturday while speaking at the Dedan Kimathi University of Science and Technology in Nyeri, Education CS Ezekiel Machogu put public universities on notice saying they should think of how to generate their own revenue as the State will soon stop funding them.

"I’m going to move around each and every university in Kenya because a number is faced with financial problems and we are encouraging that they must generate their own income because the exchequer as it is now not going to continue funding more," he said.

Earlier on Tuesday, the CS said he had been misquoted.

Machogu said that the government has already allocated a capitation of Sh50 billion for University Education and Sh15.8 billion to the Higher Education Loans Board.

"Nobody ever said that university funding will be done away with. Government is supporting universities and will continue to support them through capitation," he said.

"If there are other ways to increase revenue, why not?"