BUNGOMA, Kenya, Nov 4 – Bungoma governor Kenneth Lusaka has said scholarships issued by the devolved unit were marred with irregularities.
The announcement comes after the governor gazetted the Education Scholarship Audit taskforce to assess the implementation of the Bungoma Education Scholarship Fund.
Preliminary finding from the interim report revealed that the process of identifying beneficiaries were flawed as needy and deserving students were locked out of the fund.
Instead, scholarships were issued to well off families.
It also found that some schools were still getting funding even after beneficiaries had transferred to other institutions.
From the report, Kibabii High School had 521 students on record yet the actual beneficiaries were 409, representing 112 ghost students.
Teremi Boys and Bungoma High had 113 and 88 ghost students respectively. On the other hand, Cardinal Otunga had 80 ghost students and Moi Girls Kamusinga had 62 non-existent beneficiaries.
“However, the most shocking case is of ghost students, over-payments to schools and cases of one recipient receiving multiple allocations,” said Lusaka.
“If the amount potentially lost from just the 6 schools sampled out of the total of 522 stands at Sh19,140,000, then the actual amount possibly misappropriated must run into the hundreds of millions when extrapolated,” added the county boss.
A very high number of students could not be traced, the report revealed. Some schools were not even aware of their existence.
“The use of cheque payments instead of the recommended Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS) was intentional, which may have created an avenue for abuse of the program. This flouted the established laws and procedures,” said Lusaka.
He extended the mandate of the task forces by 10 more days to enable them to conclude and submit their final reports.
He also ordered a headcount on County’s human resource to establish the actual staff number in the County Public Service.
The county boss warned culprits while sending Chief Officers on a one-month compulsory leave to allow for an investigation.
Since its launch in 2018, by former County boss Wycliffe Wangamati, the ‘Governor’s Scholarship’ has been awarded to 3,486 students as of 2021.
