Kenya's teacher employer has NOT said it will not pay 100,000 teachers due to scrapping of Finance Bill 2024
IN SHORT: A graphic circulating on social media claims that 100,000 teachers won't be paid in July 2024 as a result of Kenya's finance bill being scrapped. But the graphic is fake and should be ignored.
A graphic doing the rounds on social media in Kenya attributes a quote to the chief executive of the Teachers Service Commission (TSC), Nancy Macharia.
The graphic, dated 2 July 2024, reads: "Consequences of not passing Finance Bill 2024: 100,000 teachers will not be paid in July."
The TSC, Kenya's largest civil service employer, is an independent commission established under the constitution of Kenya to manage human resources in the education sector.
The graphic shows an image of Macharia and the logo of Citizen Digital, suggesting that it was published by the Kenyan media house.
It went viral as Kenyans continued to protest after president William Ruto said he would not sign the controversial Finance Bill 2024 into law. Ruto later remarked that the withdrawal of the bill would lead to more borrowing and spending cuts within the government.
The quote attributed to Macharia has also been posted here, here and here, but without the Citizen Digital logo. (Note: See more instances listed at the end of this report.)
Is it legit? We checked.
Ignore fake graphic and fabricated quote
The graphic spread quickly on social media. If Macharia had made this announcement, it would have attracted the attention of Kenya's mainstream media. But Africa Check could not find any reports on this from any reputable media house.
Citizen Digital often publishes its graphics on its verified social media accounts, including Facebook and X (formerly Twitter). We scoured the accounts for the graphic from 2 July and came up empty.
On 2 July, the TSC posted the circulating graphic on its official social media accounts, with the word "fake" printed in red.
It cautioned its readers: "Fake News Alert!"
We have found no evidence that Macharia said this, or that any media house quoted her as saying it.
