Two Nairobi County officials arrested over revenue diversion
The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) has arrested two Nairobi County officials for allegedly diverting county revenue through manipulation of the Nairobi Revenue Services portal.
The suspects have been identified as Daniel Odidi Ganje, Officer-In-Charge of the Data Office at St. Peter Cleavers Revenue offices in Starehe, and John Gachagua Mburu, a Mt. Kenya University Student on attachment at the same office.
According the EACC, the suspects asked a complainant who sought to pay Ksh45,000 annual parking fees for his commercial vehicles to deposit the money into the student’s private bank account as opposed to the Nairobi County bank account.
To assure the complainant of the viability of the deal, the suspects entered the registration details of the complainant’s vehicle into the revenue portal which indicated full payment of the parking fees for the whole year, despite not having paid anything to the County.
The suspects were processed at EACC Police Station on Tuesday and later released on cash bail pending arraignment after concurrence of the ODPP.
The anti-graft agency noted that diversion of revenue is prevalent in several county governments and is one of the reasons why most devolved units fail to meet their revenue targets.
“Investigations undertaken in the counties so far reveal that some senior county officials use students on attachment or internship as conduits for theft of public funds, with some students being compelled to register companies or business names which are later introduced into the IFMIS platform to facilitate execution of fraudulent schemes,” said EACC.
“Upon payments to those proxy companies, the students are asked to withdraw the monies sent or diverted to the bank accounts and deliver the same to their masters. This partly explains the Commission’s position that there is no big or small fish in the fight against corruption; all are criminals to be dealt with as such.”
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