Parliament staff under probe over fraudulent deals

Speaker of the National Assembly Justine Muturi (PHOTO: MOSES OMUSULA/ STANDARD)

The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) is investigating a cartel in Parliament that has been siphoning millions of taxpayers' money in fraudulent procurement, irregular perks and theft of equipment.

The cartel involves staff of crucial departments in Parliament, Parliamentary Service Commission (PSC) and suppliers.

The staff in procurement, finance, supplies and stores departments in Parliament use "fake minutes" to issue contracts and raise invoices for payments to be made. Sometimes goods are never supplied yet payments are made.

In some cases, tenders are inflated to up to five times the price, and these are paid without even checking what was supplied.

An insider who leaked the information said the issue has been going on for the last three years. So far, deals worth Sh50 million made within two months in 2014 are questionable

Some junior staff are also being paid way above their job grade as they collude with the payroll clerks to inflate their basic pay, or claim transport allowance, late duty allowance and telephone allowance. They later give payroll clerks a cut.

In other cases, the staff take equipment out of Parliament Buildings under the guise of taking them for repairs but which are never returned.

"Some of such equipment, especially photocopy machines, have been 'repurchased' by Parliament through the same dealers in a well-orchestrated means, while some get to be sold elsewhere or even end up in photocopier bureau," noted the whistleblower in his brief to National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi (above).

The whistleblower's letter, which is copied to the PSC, calling for investigations to nail the corrupt cartel.

A woman in the printing department was, for instance, found sneaking supplies she had received back to the supplier after she had duly signed the delivery note to show that the supplies had been delivered in Parliament.

"The security department was informed and investigations were undertaken against her and the case referred to the management. No action was taken against her," reads the letter.

The managers of Parliament (the heads of department) meet weekly and the Parliamentary Service Commission meets at least twice a month.

The insider, who has written to the Speaker, has invoices and a print-out from the Integrated Financial Management Information System showing the companies, how much they were paid and what they received.

The compilation shows that at least Sh42 million was paid fraudulently.

The DCI investigation comes against a backdrop of reports that three staff members were fired over fraud and over a dozen are under investigation.

In a schedule of payments attached to the letter, the whistleblower shows money being paid out at regular intervals for the supply of toners. For instance, in August 2014, Sh10 million was paid for toners with the money coming in tranches of Sh1.9 million twice and Sh2.4 million twice. That same month, another company also made Sh6 million for "the supply of toners".

The whistleblower has also guided the investigators on what to look out for in the huge web of corruption.

"To get total amounts paid per 'supplier', demand all 'payments' to the said companies for the last three years from the Detailed Voucher Payment Schedule system... The figures are repetitive and each 'payment' re-occurs after regular number of days, say 4 days, an indicator of conscious transfers not necessarily occasioned by a service or supply," said the whistleblower.

Also the invoices and the LPOs (local purchase orders) do not follow any serial order, an indication they aren't genuine but randomly allocated numbers, the brief noted.