By Bernard Maluki

On July 2, 2021, KTN News Kenya posted on Facebook claiming that auctioneers raided the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) head office along Mfangano Street in Nairobi over a Sh1.4 million debt. An interview with a KNUT member verifies this claim. 

Following the raid, employees of KNUT were forced to work from home after auctioneers confisticated items in a bid to recover the debt.

The debt was owed to the union’s employee, based in Homa Bay county. The raid was confirmed by KNUT deputy secretary-general Hesbon Otieno in an interview with KTN Kenya. 

“We have been ambushed by auctioneers, we have tried to negotiate with them to give us time to pay the debt, but they wanted to carry things; they have carried out furniture and gone with them,” said Otieno. 

The official acknowledged that KNUT is currently faced with financial challenges due to declining member contributions. 

“As an organisation, we have been going through challenges that are known, now that we have a new office we will go through all the debts even for our employees or our branches then we will pay, but today was bad even the workers were on their daily duties, now we have been a force to let them work from home until we find a solution and manage to get our furniture back and continue with our normal duties as usual,” he added. 

Notably, as of December 2020, KNUT membership had fallen from 187,471 to just 34,000 in a year, while monthly contributions plunged from Sh144 million to Sh25 million.

We have looked into the claim; auctioneers raided KNUT over Ksh 1.4m debt and found it to be TRUE. 

Image: KNUT offices where the raid occurred. Source: Kenyans.co.ke

 This story was produced by Mwanedu FM in partnership with Code for Africa, Kenya Community Media Network (KCOMNET) and the Catholic Media Council with support from the German Cooperation as a part of the Our County Our Responsibility project.