Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET) officials have decried high taxation, saying it had “suffocated” the teachers’ ability to afford living expenses.

KUPPET officials in Kilifi and Tana River counties said teachers are now forced to engage in moonlighting, dealing a blow to the standards of education in the country.

The Secretary General of KUPPET in Kilifi County, Omollo Koppolo, and his Tana River counterpart, Omondi Oluoch said other teachers are forced to take expensive loans to finance their lives.

They spoke in Malindi during a financial literacy meeting for teachers organised by Malindi MP Amina Mnyazi and the KUPPET and Malindi businessman Alfred Agunga.

The KUPPET leadership urged the teachers to engage in side hustles to cushion themselves against the high cost of living and the effects of a shrinking pay slip.

Agunga said that teachers were among government employees being suffocated and taxed on a meager salary, hence pushing them into poverty.

“What I am telling you as teachers is something that will not take your time from your class, but something that you can do for a long time. What I mean is that two streams or three streams of income are the best you can ever have in your life,” said Agunga.

He encouraged them to venture into agriculture since it was the most sustainable and promising venture at the moment that would enable them to earn extra money to complement their salaries.

“Right now, agriculture is where everyone is looking, and in the next five to ten years, you will reap huge returns to complement what you earn in the teaching profession,” he added.

He said teachers have been suffering because of bad financial decisions that make them subject to poverty after retirement.

He said a teacher should, for example obtain a Sh2 million loan to build a house so as to move from a rental house and then end up being deducted a lot of money for years.

“The population is growing, and educated people are running away from the farms, leaving a gap for people to invest,” he said.

Mnyazi said that as leaders, they will not keep quiet even if they are in a broad-based government if things are not going right, adding that they will speak out if teachers are overtaxed, which makes them get peanuts in the form of salaries.

“We are in the broad-based government, but we will speak out when the government burdens our people with taxes with meager salaries, and when teachers cry out about more deductions in their pay slips, we will call the government out,” she said.

At the same time, Embakasi East member of parliament Babu Owino, who addressed the same teachers, slammed President William Ruto for contributing to the ailing education system in the country, especially with the new proposal to make mathematics an optional subject.

“CBC is an opportunity for our children to grow physically and not mentally, but it has failed and should be done away with. It is a good curriculum, but not in Kenya,” he said.