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How Parliament staff stole millions using fake tender documents

October 14th, 2015 2 min read

Police are investigating middle-level staff at the Parliamentary Service Commission over the theft of millions of shillings using fake tender documents.

Officers from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) have been at Parliament for weeks, combing through heaps of tender documents and local purchase orders to unravel the extent of the theft, the amounts stolen and the individuals behind it.

The investigations followed anonymous letters sent to the commission, which is chaired by National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi.

Mr Muturi said the PSC had invited the DCI officers to investigate the claims.

“We felt they were the right people to investigate the matter,” Mr Muturi said in an interview with last Friday.

TENDER DOCUMENTS FALSIFIED

A copy of one of the anonymous letters  has a list of five companies that allegedly got millions of shillings after tender documents were falsified.

In the first transaction, a total of Sh29.8 million was stolen after the companies colluded with unscrupulous PSC staff to inflate the tender cost from Sh8.9 million to Sh38.8 million.

In another fishy deal, the tender amount was altered from Sh12.4 million to Sh18.5 million, with the difference of Sh6 million ending up in the pockets of unscrupulous PSC officials and the owners of the firms that purportedly won the tenders.

In the five transactions listed by the authors of the anonymous letters, the commission lost a total of Sh42 million to the fraudsters. The letters allege that the scandal has been going on for the past three years and is mainly perpetrated by staff in the procurement and finance departments.

FALSE MILEAGE CLAIMS

The revelations will only pile pressure on the commission, coming at a time when MPs and senators are on the spot over false mileage claims.

Some lawmakers are accused of making mileage claims weekly, even when they do not use their official cars. They are abusing the fund meant to reimburse them for expenses incurred when they drive to their constituency work stations.