How ghost students and schools gobbled up Sh3.7b in capitation

Auditor General Nancy Gathungu has exposed how the government disbursed billions of shillings to ghost students in capitation to non-existent schools for four financial years from 2020 to 2024.

A special report tabled before the National Assembly Public Accounts Committee (PAC) yesterday shows how ghost students in 723 schools gobbled up Sh3.7 billion in capitation due to irregularities in the actual number of students registered in the National Education Management Information System (NEMIS).

It also details how 33 of a sampled 83 schools were non-existent and received capitation to the tune of Sh25.59 million. "The ghost schools are in the system, but when we went to the ground, we did not find them, so they are getting capital, but education officers could not show us where they exist," said Justus Ochieng, the director of audit at the office of the OAG.

The special report on capitation and infrastructure grants in schools shows a comparison of the number of students registered in NEMIS and the individual sampled school students' registers, establishing instances where the number of students registered in NEMIS differed.

The variances, it added, resulted in 354 secondary schools, 99 Junior Secondary Schools (JSS), and 270 primary schools being overfunded by Sh3.7 billion over the four years. The billions include the questionable Sh3.59 billion capitation to secondary schools, Sh79.44 million to primary schools and Sh30.8 million to JSS.

Notably, the special audit had sampled the disbursement of capitation to 1,039 schools, inclusive of 438 secondary schools, 244 JSS schools and 357 primary schools.

The Auditor General further investigated the school's registration process, where a review of data in NEMIS revealed variances in the series of data maintained by the State Department of Basic Education (SDBE)- NEMIS, the Teachers Service Commission (TSC), the Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) and the Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KEPSEA) systems.

An audit inspection of 83 schools sampled established that there were 14 schools that received capitation, totalling Sh16.68 million. However, the schools did not appear in the County Director of Education (CDEs) records, while the CDEs were not aware of their existence.

"The SDBE indicated some of the explanations for the variances as: names captured in NEMIS being different from the actual names of the schools, actual location of schools being different from the locations indicated in the NEMIS and closure of some schools," added the report.

Further, it emerged that Sh889,348 had been sent to six schools that had ceased operations. Some 13 schools that received Sh11.02 million had registered names which differed from those captured in NEMIS.

The committee, led by MP Tindi Mwale, tasked the Auditor General to furnish it with further details on the names and details of the non-existent schools. "You should table this information so we can get to know which schools these are. We will also be writing to the Ministry so that they can respond to respond to the discrepancies that have been stated in the special report," said Mwale.

Funyula MP Wilberforce took issue with what he termed as an intentionally run-down NEMIS system to benefit a few individuals.

"The nature of NEMIS was designed to disenfranchise some sections of the country, and that is why you find in many cases the number of students in NEMIS is half of what is in schools. We hope this historical injustice will be addressed when we consider this report," Ounda said.

"We also need to know the ghost schools, and which heartless public officer pressed the button to send monies to the ghost schools," he added.