Kenya Women Teachers Association (Kewota) General Secretary Benta Openda and National Treasurer Jacinta Ndegwa speaking to journalists at Maragi Primary School in Murang'a on July 23, 2019.
The Kenya Women Teacher’s Association (KEWOTA) is on the spot for deducting Ksh200 from teachers without their consent.
Teachers who wrote to nyakundireport.com say that they have never signed any agreements with KEWOTA but their salaries are being deducted.
Some say they wrote to the two organizations, KEWOTA and Teachers Service Commission (TSC) to stop the deductions but that has not been effected.
‘We wrote to both KEWOTA and TSC to stop the deductions but the deductions are continuing’, a teacher who spoke on condition that her identity should not be revealed said.
KEWOTA, on its website, boasts of being an association that consists of female teachers employed by the TSC, privately employed female teachers, ECDE female teachers, SNE female teachers and other women in the education sector.
The female-only teachers’ organization is led by the three highest-ranking female union leaders in Kenya, Ms Benta Opande as the CEO, Ms Jacinta Ndegwa as the treasurer and Ms Dorothy Muthoni as the chairperson. The organization says it addresses issues to do with Women Empowerment but in this case, it seems like a dis-empowerment.
KEWOTA is impacting negatively on the lives of teachers.
Some other teacher who also spoke on condition of anonymity said that teachers were forcefully conscripted into the organization and that’s why it is hard to remove them.
Ms Jacinta Ndegwa is a former Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) official. She resigned in June 2019 citing frustration from Wilson Sossion, the KNUT Secretary General.
KNUT was against the registration of KEWOTA and had written to Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) and Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) to investigate the Teachers' Service Commission (TSC) and in extension KEWOTA over membership row.
Ms Ndegwa had served as National Executive Council (NEC) member of KNUT since 2006.