It has been revealed that a section of former officials of the Education ministry allegedly  created a ghost school and inflated enrolment numbers to siphon Sh114 million.

Speaking at parliament buildings, three legislators;  Antony Oluoch (Mathare), Justus Kizito (Sinyalu) and Hassan Zuleikha (Kwale) said the government should investigate these architects and take a stern action against them.

The scandal was unearthed by a recent Public Accounts Committee report.

According to the 2017-2018 report,a clerical officer at the Directorate of Education in Kakamega, identified as  Joshua Ocharo Momanyi created an imaginary  Mundeku Secondary School which received over Sh11 million from the ministry.

Another officer inflated enrolment figures in the ministry system for several schools, resulting in an overpayment of Sh103 million to 150 schools.

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The lawmakers criticised the investigative agencies and the public prosecutor for sleeping on the job as Kenyans lose millions.

Kizito has insisted on action against the culprits, claiming that the Kakamega incident was but a tip of the iceberg of dubious schemes at the ministry.

“We want action. Everyone who has been in a position of decision-making in the periods where queries are emerging must be held to account no matter where they are today,” Kizito said.

“You cannot say an individual is the one doing all these. It is a racket and there should be an overhaul of the ministry. The racket is far and wide, we must uproot it.”

According to oluoch, the cartels have found loopholes in the infrastructure and capitation millions. He called for urgent intervention to smoke out all involved in the racket.

“This is just a case of one school discovered in Kakamega. How many more schools exist where public money is syphoned in ghosts schools and who are these shadowy people who have access this account, sign out this money and then the money is accounted for over the years as money given for capitation and infrastructure,” Oluoch said.

Zuleikha demanded full disclosure of all monies that have been given to the ministry for programmes like school feeding and sanitary pads. She said they have information about the misappropriation of the funds.

“It is absolutely unacceptable that a time hundreds of thousands of parents and their children are struggling to pay fees; when thousands of real and deserving schools are struggling to make ends meet; some Kenyans are enjoying monies that were meant for these parents, their children and the schools,” she said.

The 2018 parliamentary report gave a glimpse into how long corrupt education officials have been stealing public funds using nonexistent schools.

A publisher, who had been contracted to supply books reported to the Education ministry in 2018 that they could not trace four schools on the ground even after making enquiries to local education officials.

It’s unclear whether action was ever taken on that expose, but the matter has only come public this month following an investigation by a parliamentary watchdog that exposed how a rogue official stole free education cash channeled to one of the fictitious schools- Mundeku Secondary School in Kakamega.

Other schools fictious schools so far exposed include;

• Belgut Kaptugen Starehe Boys in Belgut Sub-county Kericho County (152 students)
• Ikonge DEB in Kisii Central, Kisii County (448 students)
• Dol Dol Boys in Laikipia North, Laikipia County (64 students).

A list given to publishers to supply books to schools under Secondary Quality Improvement Programme (SEQIP), for example, indicated that Mundeku had an enrolment of 1,188 students. Such high enrolment numbers are usually registered in national and a few extra-county schools. Considering that the government allocates Sh22,244 per learner in secondary school, the money lost to the rogue official could be more. The auditor had actually put the figure at Sh27,329,598.95 before the ministry submitted the lesser figure.

The failure by the Ministry of Education to fully migrate to the National Education Management Information System (NEMIS) is now blamed for the theft of billions of taxpayers’ money pocketed by corrupt officials and school heads, according to the report by the Public Accounts Committee.

The Public Accounts Committee Report on the Examination of the Auditor-General’s Report on the Financial Statements for the National Government for the Financial Year 2017/2018, shows that lack of accurate data on learners has led to loss of the money through manipulation of data. In one extreme and daring case, a former clerical officer at the directorate of education offices in Kakamega County listed a non-existent school in the disbursement schedule through which he would receive funds.

The report also noted that another officer had been interdicted for inflating the enrolment data for 185 schools, resulting in the overpayment of Sh269,254,288. The cases have been referred to the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) for further investigation. The report was tabled before Parliament last week by the chair of the committee, Opiyo Wandayi.

“The ministry has been using a computer programme that heavily relies on manual input of school data into the programme by officers from MoE headquarters to disburse funds to primary schools. This mode of payment has been prone to errors,” the Principal Secretary for Early Learning and Basic Education, Julius Jwan said.

In the Kakamega case, the clerical officer identified a loophole in the government system for disbursing funds to schools and registered Mundeku Secondary School. He then opened an account at Equity Bank through which he would receive the money.

The PAC report shows that the man fraudulently received Sh11,131,305.53. It, however, does not state how long the ‘school’ was in government records and how it avoided the attention of auditors.

Late last year, Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha put the money lost yearly through manipulation of student numbers at Sh752,594,740. He also said that the ministry had established that enrolment had been inflated by 529,997. He, however, did not say how long this had been going on.