Lucrative tenders fuel vicious war at scandal-hit NYS

A vicious war between old and new networks at the National Youth Service (NYS) has transformed the Thika Road-based facility into a Tower of Babel, extinguisher of careers and Jubilee’s worst nightmare.

From a tiny department in an obscure ministry in former President Kibaki’s government to a prime department in a super-ministry in President Uhuru Kenyatta’s administration, the leap has been exponential in bounds and shame.

Reeling from a scandal that led to the ouster of once powerful Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru, Principal Secretary Lilian Omollo and Director General Richard Ndubai who have since stepped aside for three months walked into the facility with gusto, raring to correct wrongs of the past.

Instead, they ended up being swallowed like their predecessors- Dr Nelson Githinji and Peter Mangiti.

The tenacity of the tender networks hooked on sweet deals, retention of multi-budget and the failure to pluck out Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS) from the facility is said to have stoked corruption informing the ongoing investigation.

While other Ministries operate a single IFMIS system to make payments for all departments, NYS has continued to run IFMIS independent of the parent ministry and despite losing Sh791 million though IFMIS-related impropriety.

But whether it was deliberate or not, this single mistake opened the flood gates for a continuation of the first scandal.

What followed was a total disregard for procurement processes, sabotage, backstabbing and an all-out war for tenders which made it possible for inflating of expenditure sometimes to the tune of 300 per cent.

For instance the NYS, which already has a contract with government-owned Kenya Meat Commission (KMC), opened a second beef supply chain with third party tender-preneurs to import meat from China. This scheme also spread to milk powder as everyone wanted a piece of the pie creating an all-out war.

In the ensuing fights, everyone started falling out with the other at the top. By the time former Youth Affairs Cabinet Secretary Sicily Kariuki was leaving the docket for Health, sources say, she was not in talking terms with senior officials at the ministry directly responsible for NYS.

So bad are the turf wars at NYS that the Sunday Standard has established that some of the top officials transferred from the department early this year to other state departments refused to leave.

This push and pull at the NYS is also among the reasons that one week since the scandal broke out there has been no concrete evidence over exactly how much money was lost.

Leaking information

Indications are that more heads could roll in the coming days after President Uhuru Kenyatta decided to deal with the situation early enough instead of letting it roll like the first scandal in 2014.

“The President also expects any public official directly implicated in the investigations to uphold the code of integrity and ethics to which they are committed and to act accordingly,” said the statement from State House released on Friday evening. With so much at stake, parties involved in the scandal appear to be deliberately leaking piece meal information in bits to the press.

Saturday National Assembly’ Public Accounts Committee chairman Opiyo Wandayi rubbished the stepping aside of Ms Omollo and the NYS Director General, terming it a mere public relations exercise meant to hood wink the public.

“This is not a new scandal at all. It is simply a continuation of the old scheme that was hatched way back in 2013 at the institution to siphon public funds. This is the worst form of impunity,” he said.

Among the methods the crafters of the scam used to siphon public funds was awarding tenders to companies that had not even been created or using restrictive tendering in instances where it was not necessary.

Some companies which had been flagged down for being in the first scandal were also paid in unclear circumstances like one which received over Sh300 million. And in some cases companies were paid without existing contracts between them and the Youth Ministry.

One firm which was paid Sh54,848,750 according to documents in our possession was given a supplies contract six months before it was registered. In another instance the Ministry opted to use restricted tendering for the construction of six Huduma centres including the one in Kibera after they had advertised for tenders in complete disregard of the law

The change of heart took place on March 3 last year when the Head of Supply Chain Management wrote to the Principal Secretary asking her to disregard the tender which had already been floated. Sh616,376,731 was spent by the Ministry on the six Huduma Centres through restrictive tendering without an explanation on why it was necessary.

For the Kibera Huduma Centre, the contractor was paid Sh6,398,170 for the installation of fittings without the existence of a contract or having done any work. As the siphoning of funds was going on, critical services at the NYS nearly ground to a halt as preferred companies were given priority in payment like in the first scandal.

An ambitious Sh13 billion project to build dams during the period that the money was being stolen ground to a halt after servicemen complained of not getting their allowances. The Kenya Somalia wall too also stalled before being stopped completely two weeks ago.

According to those in the know, each service man working in the two projects have never been paid to date.

The Public Accounts Committee has ordered those it suspects to be part of the scam to appear before it tomorrow (Monday).

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