Delayed payment of compensation to parents and guardians of Kyanguli Secondary School fir…

Prayer

That the Government and the respective managements of public schools have a responsibility to protect the lives and property of students in all schools; that many schools in the country have been experiencing students’ unrests associated with failure by school administration to address students’ grievances; that in March 2001, Kyanguli Secondary School experienced one of the worst cases of students’ unrest in the country when riotous students locked their colleagues in a dormitory, sprayed it with petrol and set it ablaze; that the resultant inferno gutted down the entire dormitory, caused horrific deaths of 63 young budding lives while scores others were maimed as students’ and school property of immense value was decimated; that investigations into the incident revealed massive negligence on the part of the school management by establishing that whereas glaring signs of impending students strike had been identified, the school administration never took measures to deter the inferno; that further, whereas the capacity of the ill-fated dormitory was 96 students, the school administration had congested it with 139 students at the time of the inferno, thereby increasing the casualties; that in 2002, parents and guardians of the victims and survivors sought compensation from the courts and the High Court, in a ruling dated 3rd March, 2016, awarded Kshs40,950,000 as compensation to the survivors of the Kyanguli dormitory fire, jointly and severally, and broke it down as follows: