Ministry of Education loses Ksh 85B through ghost schools, Auditor-General report
Ministry of Education on the spot again over the expenditure of Ksh 85B through ghost schools in the 2020/21 financial year.
Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu has revealed that the Ministry of Education had not adhered to the prescribed procedures with accuracy, revealing holes in the way that vast sums of taxpayers’ money were spent.
The auditor reported that many school principals refused to acknowledge whether they had received money designated for schools.
The Auditor-General noted that her staff were denied access to the National Education Management Information System (Nemis).
She also claimed that there were sloppy bookkeeping practices and dubious school bank accounts.
Gathungu claimed that they were unable to access Nemis, and therefore unable to confirm and approve Ksh59.5 billion in expenditures.
One of the questionable outcomes was that auditors could not ascertain the number of students per school and county “at any time of disbursement”.
“None of the listed schools raised an acknowledgment receipt in the system. Further, the disbursement schedule included payments amounting to Sh137,084,111 made to 225 secondary schools whose bank account number format differed significantly from the format of bank accounts for banks supported by the national banking system,” the report indicated.
“It was therefore not possible to confirm whether the school’s bank account numbers were correctly captured and the concerned schools received the funds.”
The government disbursed Ksh8,284,401 to schools that had the same bank account numbers.
“Even though the names and sub-counts of the institutions were different indicating an error in the fund’s transmission. The anomaly was not explained and no evidence of refunds was provided to indicate the correction of the error,” the report stated.
There were falsehoods in the ministry records as 1,933 secondary schools had been documented as having the same Teachers Service Commission identification numbers.
These same schools have different names and are in different sub-counties and in total these schools received Ksh834,403,799.
Ministry of Education has also been on the spot after it emerged that the ministry gobbled up to Ksh10 million in allowances on inspection of desks in schools across the country.
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