Uasin Gishu Finland scholarships student have written a letter to president William Samoe Ruto over scholarship Saga.
The letter reads: “We are writing this to you with broken and heavy hearts, with the hope that you will offer respite for this situation, for as time goes by, so does the hope to make our dreams come true.
Mr. President, we are students who have fallen victim to lies and conmanship of the Uasin-Gishu County Government.
We paid monies in a bid to go abroad to further our studies but one year down the line, we are still here, withering in anguish and poverty.
The county government had promised us a swift process that would enable us to go to Finland and Canada under their study program, which has since come to light as a sham.
Your Excellency. Uasin Gishu County government officials led by Mr. Mandago, Mr. Chelilim and Mr. Barorot: constantly lie to us.
They have taken this a notch higher and are now lying to the public that they are sorting out our
issues and that we should be patient.
Allow us to bring to your attention that the initial 22 students and the subsequent 24 students who travelled to Finland were not part of the group asking for refunds.
As a matter of fact, it is important to note that one among the aforementioned students was a county official.
Mr. President, when you were vying for office one year ago, you came home to Uasin-Gishu, and said that this government was for the hustlers, with you as the Chief Hustler, and we respect that Young hustlers in this county are now worse off this year than they were to the loss of their property and monies.
Some youth had to work odd jobs away from their qualifications, in order to raise the money that they paid for this program, Our parents sold their assets such as land and livestock.
We held harambees in our villages and others secured loans in order to get funds for this program.
Now parents are paying for loans while their children are at home with nowhere else to turn for help.
Your Excellency, when you attended the Devolution Conference in Uasin-Gishu, you stated that we should be refunded, but one month down the line, nothing has happened on that front As a matter of fact, they have now taken to chest-thumping and threatening the most vocal students in a bid to silence them.
This begs the question, where are you? Why have they refused to listen to you? Why are the hustlers being threatened for standing up for their rights? Where are we headed as your home county?
While we appreciate your instruction to them to get us local scholarships. we have lost a lot of money and find ourselves in a position that we are unable to take these scholarships due to our parents falling ill needing our care: and going on medication ourselves to deal with our depression.
Mr. President, we seek and urge your swift intervention to ensure that the county government of Uasin Gishu refunds money to the students to allow us to once again begin working towards our dreams and take advantage of the local scholarships Your Excellency graciously offered us.
Yours Faithfully,
179 Students of Uasin-Gishu County.”
