By Mathews Bulimo Achola
The inquiry taskforce formed by Governor Ken Lusaka on the usage of funds meant for the Education Sector under the Bungoma County Government education Scheme Programme has cited misappropriation of funds and emergence of ghost students in its Preliminary Report.
Speaking at the county Headquarters, Governor Lusaka said that some of the money allocated during his predecessor’s tenure Hon. Wycliffe Wangamati was merely mishandled and mismanaged by the former regime.
He said that the task force report shows that the government money allocated to support needy students cannot be fully accounted for.
The task force which carried out the findings and prepared a report was divided into three sub -groups; the education scholarship audit force, human resource audit and pending bills audit whose roles were to assess the implementation of the Bungoma education scholarship funds, establish the status of the human resource and examine the eligibility of the pending bills respectively.
Lusaka said that the task force reviewed the scholarship programme from 2018 to date and sampled the beneficiary students drawn from 46 out of 522 schools that have received funding.
“Today I am presenting to you these three task force reports and you will see how the previous regime was running the government,” said Lusaka.
He said the task force acknowledged that the scholarship concept was and remains a noble idea; however, the implementation has been marred with various irregularities.
The county boss added that the tenure of the Ward Committees which were tasked with identifying beneficiaries had expired but continued being in office without appointment or re-appointment letters.
He said the ward committees were unlawfully constituted with several members of the executive chairing them contrary to the law.
Lusaka said there were anomalies in records of minutes and attendance lists.
The governor added that the process of identifying the beneficiaries was massively flawed with many undeserving cases being awarded scholarships and deserving cases denied. Consequently, there were many changes made to the original list of beneficiaries.
Lusaka said that in 46 schools, seven students had been transferred to other schools but their former school continued to receive funds.
He also said that the county continued to pay fees for 18 students whose parents had paid their full fees. He also stated that the county continued to pay fees for 11 students, whose fees had been paid by another education kitty.
The report revealed that the allocation of funds to 17 and 62 students in Chesamisi Boys and Chebukaka girls could not be traced respectively.
The use of cheque payments instead of the recommended Integrated Financial Management System (IFMIS) was intentional, which may have created an avenue for abuse of the programme.
Lusaka said that the task force will proceed to the other departments to perform its audit roles. He asked the chief officers that are on a compulsory leave to continue staying out of their offices for the next one month in order to give the task force enough time to the to do its work.
The task force was also added 10 more days to accomplish its mandate where full reports will be given out.
The county boss said that his administration will not allow looting and mismanagement of taxpayers’ money. He added that his governance will be transparent and accountable for expenditure.
However, former Bungoma Governor Hon. Wangamati has stated that the taskforce auditing of the Scholarship Funds during his regime and its identification of malice is politically instigated.
According to Wangamati, the education programme has its audited accounts reports and has so far helped a total of 10,000 vulnerable pupils noting that the beneficiary students list that was used to write cheques was drawn from the National Education Management Information System (NEMIS) database system.
He noted that a claim of Kshs19 million being misused or looted is a mere allegation, and that there were no ghost students in the scholarship programme but some students transferred to other schools.
Hon. Wangamati urged Governor Lusaka to concentrate on his work and focus more on ensuring that Bungoma County students receive funding for education.
