1) In March, 2014 the Public Procurement Administrative Review Board cancelled the Sh24.6 billion laptops tender for Standard One pupils after it found the tender to Olive Telecommunications Pvt Limited had not been awarded fairly. The project was later awarded to two consortia involving Moi University and the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology
2) In January 2015 police lobbed teargas canisters at students from Langata Road Primary School in Nairobi as they protested the grabbing of their school playground. Preliminary investigations by the National Land Commission showed the land belongs to the school, which was issued with an allotment letter in 1975. Deputy President William Ruto later admitted to owning a stake in the nearby Weston Hotel, which is built on a 0.77ha parcel of land that belonged to the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority before it changed hands in the dying days of the Moi regime.
3) In March 2015, Transport Cabinet Secretary James Macharia stopped the building of a passenger terminal at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, saying the Sh56billion project would yield little value and that the money would be better spent on another runway.
4) In August 2015 Jubilee MPs threw out a special audit report on the irregular procurement of a private luxury jet that flew Deputy President William Ruto to four West African countries in May 2013. The Public Accounts Committee had ordered the Auditor-General, Edward Ouko, to conduct a forensic audit on the hire of the plane belonging to VistaJet after it emerged that the trip may have cost taxpayers Sh100m.
5) In October 2015 Central Bank of Kenya shut down Imperial Bank after it was found that the bank’s former Managing Director, Abdulmalek Janmohamed, used a network of 20 companies and individuals to execute a scheme that robbed Imperial Bank of Sh34 billion over a period of 13 years. The fact that the scandal went on for so long undetected by the Central Bank raised questions about its oversight role.
6) In November 2015 Former Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru, who was at the helm of the Devolution ministry when the National Youth Service (NYS) scandal was exposed, resigned from her post in November 2015 after months of resisting calls for her to do so, though she has not been charged. According to the special Auditor’s General report the scandal lost taxpayers Sh1.9 billion .
7) Labour Secretary Kazungu Kambi and former National Social Security Fund) NSSF acting chair Richard Langat were sacked after investigations were opened against them by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission following their support and approval of a Sh5 billion tender awarded to a construction company, China Jiangxi International Kenya, for the development of the Tassia housing scheme. The award was made despite the fact that the board of trustees did not approve the upward review of the project cost from Sh3 billion.
8) In October 2016 an inhouse audit report at the Ministry of Health revealed that Sh5.2billion was misappropriated.
9) In October 2016, 99 mobile clinics were lying at the National Youth Service yard at Miritini in Mombasa County, six months after they were imported from China. It emerged that Estama Investments Ltd was awarded the Sh1 billion tender to supply 100 clinics (one had been brought to Nairobi for a demonstration). Official documents showed each clinic was bought and imported at Sh1.4 million before being sold to the government at Sh10 million .
10) The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) found the Geothermal Development Company (GDC) tender committee culpable of glaring irregularities that lost taxpayers’ funds. The EACC said the tender committee should be probed for awarding Bonfide Clearing and Forwarding Ltd a contract to move geothermal rigs and other equipment in 40 lots, with each costing Sh42 million, in the Menengai drilling area within a radius of about 500 metres, bringing the total cost to Sh1.7 billion . Six managers were sent on compulsory leave after they were blamed for inflating rig charges almost three times from Sh15 million.
11) Chickengate was a scandal in which British businessmen Christopher Smith and his son Nick Smith, who worked for Smith and Ouzman, paid bribes to Kenyan officials of the Kenya National Examinations Council and the Interim Independent Electoral Commission, the forerunner of IEBC. Investigations by the UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) alleged that about Sh50 million was paid out as bribes.
Compiled by Dorothy Otieno, Sources: Auditor General’s special reports and Nation Archives
