Government payment system stopped plan to swindle National Youth Service millions, House team told

Cabinet Secretary for Finance Henry Rotich ( left ) with his team of experts when they appeared before the Public Accounts Committee to find out several tendering procedures of ( IFMS ) at Parliament Buildings 25/06/15 Nairobi [PHOTO/MOSES OMUSULA/STANDARD]

Cabinet Secretary for the National Treasury Henry Rotich yesterday told a parliamentary watchdog committee that the Government payment system thwarted an attempt to loot Sh826 million from the National Youth Service.

Mr Rotich and his Principal Secretary Kamau Thugge said no money had been lost.

"The process had only reached the second stage and there were about 24 stages to go. The process was stopped so we can say the system worked the way it was supposed to," Mr Thugge told the Public Accounts Committee.

The National Treasury's defence came as Majority Leader Aden Duale (Garissa Township) notified the National Assembly that Devolution Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru under whose docket the NYS falls, was out of the country on official duty.

Waiguru was set to appear before the Labour and Social Welfare Committee next Tuesday, but the House teams will now have to wait for two more weeks to get answers on the NYS scandal.

Rotich said the design of the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS) has alarms that go off whenever it detects an improper transaction.

He said it was near-impossible to hack the system to siphon public funds.

password theft

The Director of IFMIS Jerome Ochieng' told the PAC the alarm in the system went off when the allocation for goods and services at the NYS was exhausted within a very short time.

The system is linked to the budget and it makes deductions once a supplier gets the approval for payment.

"It is not normal to have requisitions that can exhaust the available budget overnight. The issue was flagged and that is how the investigations were launched," Ochieng' told the team at Parliament Buildings in Nairobi yesterday.

The Director of Public Prosecutions Keriako Tobiko has ordered the Directorate of Criminal Investigations headed by Ndegwa Muhoro to investigate the theft of a password belonging to Senior Deputy Director General Adan Harakhe.

"What is being investigated is whether someone had access to the password," said Rotich.

The responses did not, however, stop the team chaired by Nicholas Gumbo from questioning the integrity of IFMIS.

Gumbo said the National Treasury was obstructing the Auditor General from auditing the system, but Rotich denied the claims.

The CS said he is set to meet the Auditor General, Edward Ouko, to finalise the IFMIS audit.