MOI VS SACHO COMMUNITY

NAIROBI, Kenya, May 15 - The High Court will in two months time decide whether Sacho High School should revert to being a public institution.

The court will on July 16 determine whether it should grant an application by 63 villagers from Sacho Division in Baringo District who have accused retired President Daniel arap Moi of privatising the school.

High Court Judge Roselyn Wendo on Friday deferred the verdict saying it was not ready.

During the hearing of the application, the residents of Sacho told the court that the former President registered Sacho High School secretly into a private entity when he was the patron of the institution.

They claim the registration of the school from a public one to private was done without the involvement of the residents of Sacho division who established the school in 1982.

The 100 residents filed the suit in October 2008 against the board of governors of Sacho High School, the Ministry for Education and the Attorney General.

Thirty-five of them later withdrew their participation in the suit.

The court later decided that President Moi and his son Jonathan Toroitich and businessman Joshua Kulei who are former trustees of the school’s board be enjoined in the suit as interested parties.

The petitioners say the trustees corruptly acquired Sacho High School, which was a public institution. They say they got to know that the school was private on February 13, 2006.

They argued that they could no longer afford to enroll their children at the institution because it charges exorbitant fees. The villagers say they have an interest in the institution as envisaged by section 75(1) of the Constitution.