Unscrupulous Prisons officers blatantly ignored procurement laws in a scheme to swindle taxpayers 6.2 billion in false claims.
In the scheme, bills were paid whether the vouchers met the requirement of the law or not.
Also, officers continued to pay suppliers –to the point of creating business relationships with stations – yet they did not have credit letters, inspection and acceptance certificates.
These details were exposed in a new State Department for Correctional Services’ report.
The report states that officers at the headquarters funded field stations without budgetary provisions and procurement plans.
The dossier tabled before the National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee on Tuesday was prepared by a committee appointed by PS Zeinab Hussein to review the pending bills.
“There were weak controls and inconsistency in compliance with the law; this has been the practice for a long period,” the report reads in part.
The report further revealed that some of the actions were executed by the District Tender Committees, “and that officers in charge of stations had limited roles”.
PS Hussein has maintained that not a penny of the false claims will be paid, factoring reports of three audits which all declared the bills non-payable.
A multi-agency team comprising representatives from the National Treasury, Office of the Solicitor General, EACC, and the DCI reviewed the bills.
A team of auditors from the National Treasury and from the department separately reviewed the claims and concluded they were falsified.
Prisons’ pending bills escalated between 2013 and 2018 from Sh521 million to Sh1.97 billion respectively.
In the financial year ending June 2018, the department paid up only Sh40 million, being claims for development projects.
The committee analysing the audit reports for 14 prisons in Central found out that Sh439 million pending bills were not payable; the same was the case of Nyanza’s six stations of Sh263 million.
PS Hussein said they are baffled that the questionable suppliers have neither made any demands for payment nor sued, but the claims exist in books as pending bills.
“We have not seen anyone taking us to court. We just received letters in the financial year 2018 from lawyers asking us to expedite payments, which are never followed up,” she told MPs.
Committee chairman Opiyo Wandayi (Ugunja), Junet Mohammed (Suna East), Peter Masara (Suna West), Ndindi Nyoro (Kiharu), Florence Mutua (Busia), Qalicha Wario (Moyale), Mathias Robi (Kuria West), Jessica Mbalu (Kibwezi East) were present.
The lawmakers reprimanded the prisons bosses for failing to prosecute officers behind the fraudulent pending bills.
“Why has it taken unusually long for the Directorate of Criminal Investigations and the EACC to probe the matter yet they were part of the multi-agency team that audited the claims?” Wandayi asked.
Lawmakers said the delay was unwarranted especially in the face of audit reports showing there was an element of criminality.
PAC, during the review of DCS account for the year ending 2017, was informed that the fraudulent bills are not under formal investigations.
“Don’t you see a reluctance to initiate investigations into this matter two or three years after the audit question was raised?” Wandayi asked.
In her response, PS Hussein told MPs that the department would institute action after identifying the key suspects.
“We have only gotten clarity this year after the three audits. The next step would be to go back and see who occasioned the losses and then apply the law,” the PS said.
Hussein said the department has since July last year changed the composition of the procurement teams to avert such incidents in the future.
She said the department’s point of call was the Treasury which is expected to form a pending bills closing committee to conclude the matter.
“We have put most of the recommendations by the multi-agency team probing the bill into action. We have verified to an extent we can do so further. We are aware the bills flouted the Procurement Act, 2015.”
(edited by O. Owino)
