NAIROBI: Documents seen by The Standard on Sunday indicate that the more than Sh790 million missing from the National Youth Service (NYS) was paid out to three companies associated with one person within a span of four months.
The bulk of this money went to accounts in a single bank before being withdrawn in cash and deposited to other accounts.
How could an individual, handling so much money and so many transactions not trigger the alarm bells of the bank in which she deposited the money? Also, why was NYS was comfortable paying out such huge amounts of money to companies listed under a single ownership?
The fraud ought to have been nipped in the bud. However, through what appears to be collusion, bad blood and outright impunity among office holders in government, the scam was allowed to go on.
As a result, junior officers have been vilified for executing orders from their superiors.
There is confusion in government as to the next course of action for 21 officers named in the Banking Fraud Investigations Unit (BFIU) report into the NYS scandal.
The unit had asked Devolution and Planning Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru to take “administrative action” on them “as we await the direction and advice of the Director of Public Prosecutions”.
The DPP Keriako Tobiko has since pointed out glaring gaps in BFIU investigations. The DPP also appeared to doubt that the 21 individuals were the real culprits in the scam given that 19 of them had recorded statements as witnesses and not suspects.
Refused to sign letters
Sources indicate that letters have been written suspending the 21 officers but may not have been dispatched owing to issues of procedure. However, the PS Peter Mangiti insists that the letters have already been issued.
“They have been issued by the respective directors of human resources, on behalf and upon the authority of the CS who is the authorised officer,” Mr Mangiti told The Standard on Sunday.
Other sources however indicated that the directors had or have refused to sign the letters quoting procedures and the law.
For instance, Deputy Director General Adan Harakhe who is supposed to be suspended is senior to the HR director at the NYS.
“As I speak to you, the officers are still reporting to work because there has been no communication from the CS on this matter. The procedure is clear. You cannot suspend them from active duty unless they are charged in court and the DPP has not sanctioned their charging either,” a source at the NYS told us.
Of the 21 officers named in the report, 16 are from the NYS. About 12 officers have since been transferred to other departments or ministries. The four who remained are the uniformed officers who cannot be transferred and are supposed to be suspended.
More questions than answers revolve around the issue of suspension. If junior officers would be sent home to pave way for investigations, why then would their seniors remain in office? Who between the two sets of employees would be in a better position to influence investigation outcome?
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If indeed majority of the 21 are witnesses, questions also abound as to the actual effect of punishing witnesses whom the state hopes to use to prove its case against perpetrators of the fraud.
And as a result of the loss of the millions of shillings, the fate of the programme aimed at giving hope to thousands of youth countrywide hangs in the balance. The public support that greeted the laying of every brick and the unclogging of drainage in Kibera and other slums is slowly waning; and in its place rests bitterness and frustration.
Hundreds involved in the countrywide Slum Upgrading Project claim they have not been paid. Projects have stalled. Anxiety has even gripped officials and many fear that whatever decision they make, even if right, would one day be held against them.
Even as all this is going on, events that led to the loss of money are not any clearer despite the fact that new pieces of information keep coming up. Everyone who ought to know what went wrong does not see the need to stand up for the truth and fix a quickly rotting system.
Individuals who took advantage of the presidency’s pet project to enrich themselves have not been prosecuted despite squandering taxpayers money.
In the first part of this series, the DPP expressed his dismay at how the investigations into this loss were carried out.
It is clear from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations report that a lot more ought to have been done. It seems more effort was put into doing an incomplete job than that put into actual investigating.
Just like Anglo Leasing, Goldenberg and other scandals that have dogged our nation, the NYS saga too has too many holes into which the rabbit with the carrot in the mouth disappears.