Uasin Gishu County lied to residents about Finland scholarships

Airlift Program Managing Director Bob Mwiti during the interview at Spice FM.

Airlift Program Managing Director Bob Mwiti has blamed the Uasin Gishu government for lying to its residents about the Finland Airlift Program.

According to Mwiti, the county promised its residents scholarships which the airlift program does not offer.

Speaking during an interview with Spice FM, Mwiti said that the county government issued the students with documents purporting it was a scholarship.

"Airlift program does not offer scholarships. We are just helping with the facilitation. With that said, I think the problem with Uasin Gishu County was that the county gave the students documents which they presented to the embassy purporting it was a scholarship and it was not," he said.

"The facilitators at the county did not specify in their documents that the students had contributed money for the program. Additionally, they had not sorted out their financial issues in terms of how they will facilitate the students."

According to Mwiti, the facilitators in the Uasin Gishu County were collecting money from parents to cater to those already in Finland.

They however lacked enough money to pay for their school fees thus pushing the various schools they were in to ban them from attending the classes.

Mwiti also argued that it was wrong for parents to assume that their children were going to Finland on a scholarship when they had paid close to one million for their children's education.

According to him, the program only negotiates with international schools so that their students can pay less fees and offers unsecured loans to those that need them.

His remarks come days after both the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) and the Director of Criminal Investigations (DCI) launched investigations on the Uasin Gishu saga that has seen students airlifted to Finland being at risk of being deported.