Constitutional Heist: State House Turns Teacher Recruitment into a Patronage Market

By Albert Kasembeli

It is not every day that a sitting Speaker of the National Assembly exposes a scheme that implicates the highest office in the land. But Moses Wetang’ula has done precisely that, and Kenyans should pay attention, not to the drama, but to the constitutional violation he has admitted exists.

Enraged, over the weekend, Wetang’ula revealed that he personally escorts Members of Parliament to State House, where the President hands each MP up to ten Teachers Service Commission (TSC) employment letters. These letters, intended for deserving teachers, are then allegedly sold to desperate jobseekers for as much as KSh400,000 apiece. From ten letters, one MP could pocket KSh4 million at the expense of qualified graduates who have waited years for a chance to teach.

Apparently, the Speaker intended to rebuke greedy legislators. Instead, he implicated the Presidency itself. If the Speaker is ferrying MPs to collect letters, the scandal is not confined to a few “unscrupulous” backbenchers. It is a systemic failure orchestrated from the top.

Article 237 of the Constitution establishes TSC as an independent body with the exclusive mandate to “recruit and employ registered teachers.”  This independence was deliberately crafted to shield public service from political capture. The commission is supposed to hire on merit, based on qualifications, graduation dates, and interview performance, not on political loyalty or ability to pay.

When the President, the Speaker, and MPs reduce teacher recruitment to a patronage scheme, they are not merely bypassing the TSC. They are dismantling one of the key independent institutions designed to protect public service from capture. The commission becomes a rubber stamp for decisions made elsewhere, its statutory processes a formality dressed around political favours.

This is not politics as usual. This is a constitutional violation. The scale of the injustice is stark. TSC data shows a national teacher deficit of about 116,000 posts, with Junior Secondary Schools alone short by tens of thousands of teachers. Yet more than 300,000 trained teachers remain registered but unemployed.

In other words, classrooms face a massive teacher shortage, while a large pool of qualified, unemployed graduates is waiting to fill those gaps. The system should be transparent and merit-based. Instead, appointments are being dished out at State House to the highest bidder.

Teachers’ unions have condemned the practice in the strongest terms. Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers Deputy Secretary-General Moses Nthurima warned that “if appointment letters are being given to politicians to distribute to their cronies and relatives, then what happens to those teachers who have followed the proper process?” The Kenya Teachers in Hardship and Arid Areas Welfare Association echoed these concerns, noting that the Speaker’s remarks confirm what unions have long suspected.

Former Law Society of Kenya President Faith Odhiambo has been equally scathing, arguing that the practice “will undermine the constitutional independence of the TSC and deny qualified teachers an opportunity to secure jobs through a transparent and merit-based process.”

This is not the first time such allegations have surfaced. Last year, Murang’a Woman Representative Betty Maina claimed that government-aligned MPs were given employment letters at State House. Nakuru West MP Samuel Arama separately stated that letters were distributed as political rewards, and that MPs seen as insufficiently supportive of the government were deliberately excluded.

Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna has repeatedly raised the issue in Parliament, noting that jobless young people are angry with political patronage in public service employment. What distinguishes this round of the controversy is the source: the Speaker of the National Assembly himself.

The question is no longer whether this practice exists. The Speaker has admitted it on camera. The question is whether any consequence will follow.

This demands investigation and accountability. If the Speaker can make this admission and face no consequences, then the Constitution is dead letter. The state must either respect the law or be held to it.

The young teachers who have played by the rules, who have graduated, interned, sat exams, and waited years deserve better. Their future should not be determined by who knows an MP or who can raise KSh400,000. It should be determined by merit, by qualification, and by the Constitution.

The writer is a governance and public policy commentator.

Ends…