EACC dossier reveals how honourable MPs divert billions of shillings to their pockets

Ethics and Anti-Corruption commission CEO Halakhe Waqo

MPs are stealing billions of shillings from Parliament in an elaborate fraud network exposed Friday by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption commission (EACC).

A Sh325 million inflated tender and some Sh25 million lost through unbanked revenue are only two of the shocking examples of looting contained in a 50-page report by the commission.

So serious is the financial abuse in Parliament that former MPs continue to draw monthly salaries years after being voted out in elections.

It is an explosive report that puts the Parliamentary Service Commission on the spot. The damning report comes at a time when Cabinet and Principal Secretaries have either quit or been forced out of office over corruption claims in their dockets.

The EACC dossier shows how insatiable greed, raw power and outright theft have combined to fraudulently redirect billions of shillings allocated to the august House every year into MPs’ pockets. The dossier doesn’t name names, but CEO Halakhe Waqo said it gave them an opening to pursue the suspects.

In pin-drop silence in an air-conditioned meeting room in Nairobi’s Safari Park Hotel, the EACC boss told National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi and the members of the Parliamentary Service Commission how weak their systems were to an extent that it was impossible to tell how much money had actually been stolen.

Reviewing documents

Within just a month that EACC detectives camped at Parliament Buildings in Nairobi reviewing documents and systems, there was Sh21 million that was never banked and nobody knows where that money is.

The dossier tells a story of lying MPs who file fake mileage claims and intimidate parliamentary officials to pay them inflated allowances for meetings they did not attend.

For instance, one weekend when one unnamed MP was in Australia on official duty, he filed fake mileage claims for travel to his constituency. While in Australia, the MP was pocketing hundreds of thousands of shillings in daily allowances.

With a budget of Sh28 billion in the current financial year, in a system where payments do not need any approval, and even when they are made they are difficult to track, it is easy to understand why MPs get instantly irritated whenever there are calls for a thorough investigation into their activities.

Crucial departments such procurement and audit are either understaffed or littered with unqualified officers doing the bidding for MPs, their suppliers or contractors.

In the procurement department, eight out of the 12 staff employed there are unqualified for the job. The audit section does not have a budget of its own, and has only four people manning it, yet it needs at least 12 to function effectively.

The detectives also exposed a Sh325 million deal that came about as a result of undue influence from the commissioners who fixed tender prices and illegally instructed the tender committee to award a contract at that price — ignoring the bids.

The MPs have also secured millions in loans using either their cars or land title deeds as collateral, but the shock for the EACC detectives is that 77 documents filed by MPs as security are missing from the banks where these loans were secured.

EACC’s Director of Preventive Services, Mr Vincent Okong’o, said the systems review in the way Parliament operates had huge holes that make it attractive for corrupt elements to loot public funds.

“The staff working in the Finance and Accounts department do not have the relevant manuals, circulars and other guidelines necessary for effective management of financial resources ... this allows for discretion and is a weakness that can lead to irregularities in the financial management process,” the EACC said.

It is in the fake mileage claims that MPs rake in millions. Some from as far as Mombasa, Kisumu, Turkana, Lamu and Mandera travel by air but when they get back to Nairobi on Tuesday, they say they made their trips using their personal vehicles.

Parliament too doesn’t have a fixed assets register and therefore MPs and even staff can walk away with equipment. When the EACC was there, it found vehicles, safes, cabinets, carpets, computers, water dispensers, executive sofas and even desks lying in the store and under the staircases in different buildings in the parliamentary square. There was no schedule of how these were going to be disposed of, yet replacements had already been bought.

A user department does not even need to say what it needs, the procurement people just buy and then those who need it go and find out if they have room for it. The law allows tender committees to be formed for every procurement but in Parliament, that does not happen.

That makes it easy for vendors and contractors to compromise the tendering, simply because of that familiarity.

Out for trips

When MPs and parliamentary staff go for trips, they take millions from a multi-billion shilling account at a commercial bank to pay for accommodation, meals and subsistence.  When they take the money, they are supposed to account for it and surrender the balance. The EACC failed to find records that this money is usually surrendered or accounted for.

A new poll released Friday by research and polling firm Ipsos indicates that the majority of Kenyans (47 per cent) think that the current Parliament is performing worse than the previous one.  Most respondents said that corruption is its main undoing.