Mombasa Times: Suleiman Shahbal visits former school

By Eugene Omilo

Mombasa County governor aspirant Suleiman Shahbal has promised to revamp the educational infrastructure in Mombasa County once elected as the first governor of the port county.

Shahbal who said his first priority is education said many public schools run by the Municipal council today are in a very poor state as no new developments have been undertaken since their initial construction during the colonial period.

“The educational infrastructure is unwelcoming in our county, our teachers are a demoralized lot and yet we expect our students to do well in their exams, this can only be a pipe dream,” said Shahbal.

The aspirant spoke while addressing teachers and parents at Kikowani Primary school in Mvita which he himself attended as a young boy.

The school is located in Tononoka near Majengo Chura where Shahbal was born.

He said he intends to modernize all the public schools in Mombasa to match them with the best private schools around as well as invest in the welfare of teachers by building them decent housing units to boost their moral.

The school’s chairman Abdulrahman Abdala Breik said the government had offered to initiate free primary education but has not taken care of the schools’ infrastructural needs.

He thanked Shahbal for paying the school’s electricity bills which had accumulated, forcing the school’s power supply to be disconnected.Shahbal also promised to hire two more teachers to help fill the staffing gap in the school.

The two teachers will draw their salaries from the Suleiman Shahbal Foundation which is run by the aspirant.

Mombasa county women representative aspirant Janet Mbete who accompanied Shahbal during the tour urged Mombasa voters to elect a competent person who understands the dynamics of the modern economy saying the poor development record in Mombasa has been as a result of electing semi illiterate leaders.