Graft in education

SUNDAY NATION (NAIROBI) Act on graft in education, donors demand International pressure is piling on the Kenya Government to act over corruption in the education sector following a damning audit report. Development partners, including the World Bank, Britain’s Department for International Development, Unicef and the Canadian International Development Agency (Cida), want names of all ministry of Education staff implicated in the loss of funds to be handed over to the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission. The donors urged swift action not only in bringing the culprits to book but also in rectifying serious problems with financial management at the ministry of Education to restore Kenyan taxpayers’ confidence in Kenya’s biggest spending ministry. Significant loss “Financial mismanagement in the ministry of Education appears to have resulted in the significant loss of funds intended to support children’s education in Kenya. As a result, some children will grow up without an education or with a lower quality education than they might have received. This is simply unacceptable,” said World Bank Kenya Country Director Johannes Zutt, on behalf of the four development partners. Ministry of Finance shared draft reports with development partners earlier this month on initial findings of the extended forensic audit. The audit, undertaken by the Finance ministry, sought to examine how education funds for the period 2005/06 to 2008/09 were used and managed. The ministry of Finance audit showed that around Sh8.4 billion (about 80 million Euros) for the four-year period was not “justified”. Audit report In an audit done in July last year the ministry discovered that Sh234 million of education funding could not be properly accounted for, prompting the subsequent audit which has unearthed a much bigger financial management problem at the ministry of Education. “The findings of this report are shocking and completely unacceptable. We will go after every penny of British taxpayers’ money that has been stolen, and those responsible for fraud must be prosecuted through the Kenyan courts,” UK Secretary of State for International Development Andrew Mitchell said. Development partners also want Kenya to fully reimburse them their share of the lost money. “It is important to Canada that our development funding be used for its agreed purposes, such as improving educational opportunities for the most vulnerable children. Accountability is a key pillar of our work, and we look to the Government of Kenya to put in place mechanisms to prevent a repeat of cases such as this,” Canadian High Commissioner to Kenya David Collins said. “The loss of funds in the education sector is very disappointing. It saddens us to see how the joint effort between the ministry of Education and development partners to achieve equitable access to quality education for the children of Kenya has been jeopardised,” said Olivia Yambi, Unicef’s Kenya country representative.