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By MWANIKI MUNUHE
KENYA; The National Authority for the Campaign against Drug Abuse (Nacada) board of directors is scheduled to meet following an exposé on fraudulent dealings running into millions of shillings at the organisation.
The Standard reported last week how the taxpayer could have lost millions of shillings in a liquor licensing scam.
Credible sources at the institution intimated to us that the report caused friction among senior officers in what has resulted in the board meeting to discuss the way forward.
Indeed, a board member who spoke to us confirmed that the meeting has been called but declined to give details on the day the meeting will take place and the actual agenda.
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“All I can tell you is that we have tentatively agreed to hold a meeting next week. Essentially, the meeting has been called to discuss important and urgent management issues. That is are all I can tell you for now,” said Fazul Mohammed, a board director at Nacada.
Massive corruption
Pressed further, Fazul said, “We cannot just sit down and listen to reports of how taxpayers’ money is being lost at Nacada and fail to ask questions. That will form part of our agenda.”
But Nacada Chief Executive William Okedi said he was not aware of any such board meeting.
“There is no board meeting. I am not aware of such a meeting to the best of my knowledge,” he said
Earlier in the week, The Standard carried an exclusive story involving massive corruption in liquor licensing. The scam involves faking banking slips, failure to submit licence book serial numbers for verification and failure to submit money collected as charges for liquor licences to the authority.
The scam was captured in a report titled ‘Internal Auditor Report (Nacada), Management of Alcoholic Drink Revenue Collection in the Districts’.
Even more disturbing according to the audit report is that NACADA officials forged bank slips, with respective banks confirming that the documents were actually forgeries.
“The Embakasi district clerk submitted 23 fake Co-operative Bank deposit slips, totalling Sh1,260,000, accompanied by respective duplicate alcoholic drink licences. The monies could not be traced in the bank statement and the Co-operative Bank confirmed that the slips were forged,” read part of the report.
In other cases, institution officials either declined to submit slips for revenue collected or withheld licence book serial numbers making verification and accountability difficult.
“The district clerk (in Migori) failed to avail/produce alcoholic drink licence serial number 20950 to 21000 (Form 7) for physical verification. She indicated it was lost by a former district commissioner. Kisii Central District did not account or avail bank deposit slips totalling Sh3,031,000 earned from issued alcoholic drink licences and applications fees,” read part of the report.
