NAIROBI, Kenya Sep 10 – The Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS) has come under scrutiny over Sh300 million in unpaid placement fees owed by institutions, with MPs demanding details on the defaulters and measures being taken to recover the money.The National Assembly Education Committee wants KUCCPS to disclose the categories of institutions that have failed to remit the Sh1,500 placement fee charged for each student placed.The issue emerged on Wednesday when the committee, chaired by Julius Melly, scrutinised KUCCPS’s budget implementation for the 2025/26 financial year.KUCCPS chief executive Agnes Wahome told MPs that the failure by some institutions to honour their payment obligations had affected the agency’s ability to meet its revenue target from placement fees.According to Dr Wahome, KUCCPS had targeted Sh284.16 million in placement fees but collected Sh261.57 million during the financial year.“Placement fees are monies invoiced to institutions after we have finished with placement. But some institutions fail to honour their obligations to pay, thus we could not achieve our target. We have about Sh300 million that has not been paid by institutions, mainly universities,” she said.Committee vice-chairperson Eve Obara questioned KUCCPS on the nature of the institutions that were in arrears and whether the agency had taken legal or administrative measures to recover the money.“Table 3 shows that placement fees underperformed (Sh261.57 million actual versus Sh284.16 million target) because not all institutions were able to honour their obligations. Which categories of institutions—public universities, private colleges or TVETs—are defaulting on these remittances, and what legal or administrative recourse is KUCCPS taking to recover these debts?” Ms Obara asked.Dr Wahome explained that the Sh1,500 charge is a one-off fee paid by institutions for student placement and validation services.She said KUCCPS validates student data every semester after students report to institutions, enabling universities to access government funding and the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) to process funds.“Once we place the students and they report, the service we give to the universities is that every semester we have to validate the data for them so that the university fund and HELB can process the funds to the universities, and for that we charge a one-off minimal fee of Sh1,500,” she said.She acknowledged that some universities had failed to pay the fees but said KUCCPS had reached an agreement with the institutions to settle the outstanding debt in instalments.“Unfortunately, we have a situation where some universities do not remit. However, starting this financial year, we made an agreement and universities signed and agreed to start paying the debt in instalments,” she said.KUCCPS records 89 per cent absorptionThe committee was also told that KUCCPS had absorbed 89 per cent of its approved budget of Sh796.5 million during the financial year.The entire budget was internally generated, with the agency spending Sh710 million during the period under review.The committee also questioned the Jomo Kenyatta Foundation (JKF) over its budget implementation after the institution reported a 100 per cent absorption rate of funds received from the Exchequer.JKF managing director David Mwaniki was asked to explain how the foundation could report full budget absorption when the actual Exchequer disbursement had been cut by 81 per cent, leaving its core operations underfunded.The National Council for Nomadic Education in Kenya (NACONEK) was the final agency to make its submission before the committee.NACONEK reported an overall budget utilisation rate of 96.46 per cent, having spent Sh5.44 billion against a revised budget of Sh5.64 billion.