DPP Keriako Tobiko demands NYS probe report

Devolution and Planning Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru (center) on a projects Inspection tour in Kibera.(PHOTO: GOVEDI ASUTSA)

The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has directed the Director of Criminal Investigations (DCI) to forward to his office the National Youth Service (NYS) investigation file.

DPP Keriako Tobiko yesterday wrote to DCI Ndegwa Muhoro asking him to expedite the probe into fraud claims at the NYS and forward the file for perusal and action.

Tobiko said he was issuing the directive following media reports the Criminal Investigation Department was investigating an attempt to siphon Sh826 million through alleged fictitious entries in the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS).

"I write to request that at the conclusion of the ongoing investigation, the resultant inquiry file(s) be forwarded to this office for perusal and appropriate action. Please expedite," the DPP letter to Muhoro reads.

Meanwhile, documents seen by The Standard have disclosed how the conspiracy to defraud the NYS of close to Sh700 million was detected and stopped before payments for fictitious supplies of building materials was made to eight companies, now at the centre of the probe.

The entries into the agency's IFMIS were detected after it emerged that some of the fictitious 18 tenders reflected in the system were approved at odd hours, some at night, against the Government procedure of working within official hours.

The suspicious entries were reflected as having been approved by Senior Deputy Director General Adan Harakhe, who is the agency's Authority to Incur Expenditure holder and made on May 20 and 21. The two days were on a weekend.

It was after this that Harakhe, through a Mr Dickson Gisiora, on May 26 wrote to Muhoro, complaining of the unauthorised access of their IFMIS and requested for help in probing the people behind it.

"Our Senior Deputy Director General's IFMIS account was used to approve payments without his knowledge on May 20 and 21, 2015... This is to request the cyber-crime unit to assist in investigation," states the letter by Gisiora.

According to correspondences, Harakhe on May 27, wrote to the Director IFMIS, Jerome Ochieng, seeking his help in cancelling the fictitious local purchase orders and removed from the system.

In the letter, Harakhe says the approval of payments was done without his knowledge "by an unautharised accesser of the system".

On June 5, Devolution Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru, wrote to Muhoro requesting action on the matter.