Swoop on Kenyan public servants
• Authorities charge 54 people after investigation into the theft of $100m
Kenyan authorities charged 54 people, mainly public servants, on Monday in an investigation into the theft of nearly $100m of public funds, a rare move to hold officials to account for graft in a nation where it is widespread.
Among the public servants and business people charged was Richard Ndubai, head of the National Youth Service, where the corruption allegedly took place, said senior accountants at the government agency and the chief internal auditor at the national treasury, chief prosecutor Noordin Mohamed Haji.
President Uhuru Kenyatta promised to stamp out graft when elected in 2013, but critics say he has been slow to pursue top officials. No high-profile convictions have occurred since he took office.
Reuters could not immediately contact any of the people named in a televised news conference by Haji, who said 20 had been taken into custody. He called on the rest to hand themselves in and said the suspects would be charged in court on Tuesday with crimes including abuse of office.
The government ministry responsible for the National Youth Service and a spokesman for the treasury did not respond to requests for comment.
The effort by Haji, a former deputy director of Kenya’s National Intelligence Service, differs from past graft investigations in that he has said he will examine the role of local banks.
“In phase two of investigations, the director of criminal investigations will focus on additional areas, including companies or entities that benefited from the fraudulent payments and banks that were complicit,” he said. He would appoint four special prosecutors to assist in the investigation.
He said the investigation by his office and police had revealed funds were stolen through fictitious invoices and multiple payments on one supplier invoice.
“Investigations reveal that there was no procurement whatsoever,” he said, adding that several bank accounts that the funds were channelled through had been frozen.
The arrests came after more than a week of front-page stories in Kenyan newspapers and numerous hashtags on Twitter.
The case — first reported earlier in May by the Daily Nation — has touched a nerve, particularly on social media, where some are mocking the Kenyatta administration for paying lip service to corruption.
Government critics say only big-name convictions will break what they call a culture of impunity. There have been none on Kenyatta’s watch, they say.
Many Kenyans believe that the amount allegedly looted by youth-service officials is a fraction of the overall amount of money stolen annually by government officials.
The state organisation trains young people and deploys them to projects ranging from construction to traffic control. The scandal follows one three years ago at the same agency. Earlier in 2018, a court acquitted nearly two dozen officials at the agency after a trial arising from the alleged theft of 48-million Kenyan shillings ($470,000) in 2015. In 2016 the then head of Kenya’s antigraft agency said Kenya was losing a third of its state budget — the equivalent of about $6bn — to corruption every year.
Kenyatta acknowledged then that corruption had reached levels that threatened national security.