MCAs refund cash paid to them for imaginary trips

Members of the Murang’a County Assembly have volunteered to refund money that they illegally pocketed as allowances in some cases for non-existent trips abroad.

The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) has so far recovered over Sh1 million from the MCAs who are keen to avoid being prosecuted for the fraud.

EACC Regional Director Jackson Mue yesterday confirmed that a number of MCAs who received falsified travel allowances have already paid back the money. 

The anti-graft agency launched investigations into the plunder of the money following a public outcry, after it was noted that some of the trips they claimed to have made never actually took place.

“Quite a number of them have actually voluntarily surrendered the money, which was irregularly paid to them as travel allowances following the probe instituted by the agency,” explained Mr Mue.

In an interview with The Standard, Mue revealed that 49 MCAs and 20 other officers were questioned by the anti-graft agency in February.

And after a few MCAs volunteered to refund the money, the rest have followed suit, and have been trooping to the EACC’s regional office in Nyeri to make peace with the commission.

Overshot Budget

Mue said that investigations into the scandal are at an advanced stage, and that the process might be concluded at the end of this month.

“We are through with preliminary investigations, which involved interviews and collection of documents, to establish if there was any wrongdoing or whether public funds were irregularly given out,” he said.

He said quite a substantial amount of work has been done and once investigations are concluded, the agency will make its recommendations public.

According to the Auditor General’s report released last year, the MCAs visited Tanzania, Netherlands, Uganda, South Africa, Israel and Singapore at a total cost of Sh62.5 million.

The report claimed that the assembly overshot the budget by Sh6,281,263 without the approval of the Controller of Budget. It indicates the trip to Uganda cost Sh6,428,541 and was made by 31 MCAs and seven staff between September 30 and October 6, 2013.

Mue, however declined to divulge any information on whether the MCAs and officials would be charged in court.

Some MCAs are alleged to have faked documents to indicate that they travelled out of Kenya for five days, yet they were in the country all along.

Others inflated the number of days they travelled to receive allowances.

And in line with recovery of funds, the anti-graft agency has received an expression of interest from members of the Mukurweini Constituency Development Fund (CDF) committee to pay back Sh3.6 million said to have been embezzled.

“The commission has given them the go-ahead to pay the amount as other processes take effect,” Mue said.

He said investigations are still ongoing to fully verify complaints and allegations regarding the alleged misappropriation of CDF monies by the committee.