Senior managers sent home over new scandal at Youth Fund

Youth Enterprise Development Fund chairman Ronnie Osumba in an interview with The Standard in Nakuru. ( PHOTO KIPSANG JOSEPH)

NAIROBI, KENYA: The Youth Enterprise Development Fund (YEDF) has sent on compulsory leave seven employees pending investigations on irregular loan disbursements.

The seven, among them two senior managers, were suspended following an internal audit, which established that Sh10,765,000 may have been lost.

The suspension came after YEDF CEO Josiah Moriasi ordered the internal audit department to conduct an assessment of its systems.

This was done after a process of migrating the fund's data to a new system that includes beneficiary loan details revealed some discrepancies.

In one instance, the audit revealed that one official was in charge of several transactions where three youth groups from Makadara, Kajiado North and Bomet East constituencies were receiving loansthat had not been approved.

Targeted groups

In some instances, officials reported that the monies sent to the targeted groups' accounts through Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) had bounced even when it had already been credited. The suspects would then commence a new process of disbursing more funds to the same groups.  

To avoid scrutiny, the suspects ensured that beneficiaries received between Sh150,000 to Sh450,000; a figure which does not require approval from the CEO before disbursement.   

Six of the seven suspects received their letters yesterday while another one from the finance department was suspended early last month.

The decision to send them home was arrived at last Friday after an audit report was tabled in a meeting chaired by Ronald Osumba, which also resolved to invite  Treasury to carry out a forensic audit to ascertain extent of rot.

Mr Osumba said the board had invited the Directorate of Criminal Investigations to investigate the matter.