School principals allege extortion racket by Auditor-General officers

Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu. [Elvis Ogina, Standard]

Details have emerged about an alleged extortion scheme targeting school principals by officers from the Office of the Auditor General.

School Heads who spoke to the Standard in confidence for fear of victimisation are reporting demands ranging from Sh400,000 to Sh1.5 million for what they claim was a favourable audit report.

The allegations have triggered a storm over the auditing of schools conducted by the Auditor General for the first time.

The reports by the Auditor-General released and tabled before the National Assembly in August have exposed deep financial management problems in some of the top public secondary schools, accused of collecting unauthorised levies, spending money without proper supporting documents and failing to comply with Government financial regulations.

The audits have also uncovered cases of unexplained cash withdrawals, unapproved bank loans, weak procurement systems and questionable investments. In some institutions, auditors found that school management could not properly account for expenditure or provide documents to support how public funds had been spent.

But the heads now indicate that auditors who visited some of the institutions demanded funds to write favourable reports.

“After the audit, one of the officers suggested that they could make a favourable report on the assessment if ‘I talked to the well’, but I declined. After that, they came back three times asking for supporting documents of issues they had initially indicated to have been conclusively covered,” one principal said.

The Standard contacted the Auditor-General’s office for a response to the allegations and the audit concerns raised by Omboko, but had not received a response by the time of going to press.

The Kenya Secondary School Heads Association (KESSHA) has now called for investigations into the claims.

Willy Kuria, the KESSHA chairman, called on relevant agencies to look into the allegations and establish the facts.

Kuria stated that the matter could affect operations in the institutions and lead to fear among school heads.

“We do not fear audits, but they must be conducted within the confines of the law; that way, it will ensure it is objective and provide a clear redress where there is a problem,” Kuria told the Standard.

On Tuesday, Emuhaya MP, who doubles as KUPPET chairman, Omboko Milemba demanded that the allegations be investigated.

Omboko backed investigations into the anomalies already identified in audit reports, saying the concerns raised by the Auditor-General should not be ignored but properly interrogated.

He said there was a need to compare reports generated by the Ministry of Education and those of the Auditor-General to establish whether there are overlaps, gaps or discrepancies in the way schools are being audited.

But he protested over duplication of audits, saying principals are being subjected to multiple layers of audits by the Ministry of Education, the Office of the Auditor-General and Parliament’s Public Investments Committee (PIC).

Omboko said the multiplicity of auditors had created an environment in which school heads were spending more time preparing for audits, appearing before different oversight bodies and allegedly looking for money to give auditors instead of managing their institutions.

“Most of those auditors at the regional levels are simply extorting money,” Omboko said.

Omboko said that school heads had reported to him that smaller and medium-sized institutions were reportedly being asked for about Sh500,000, while larger schools were allegedly facing demands of Sh1 million to Sh1.5 million or more.

“I spoke to principals in Western. I spoke to principals in Central. I spoke to principals in the Rift Valley. I spoke to principals from all over the country,” he said.

Omboko wants the allegations subjected to a thorough investigation, particularly by the Auditor-General’s office, which he said had been “seriously indicted” by the claims.

“The Auditor-General’s office must come out clean, because it’s the one that has been seriously indicted for picking money from principals,” he said.

He also challenged Parliament to examine the issue and establish whether there was duplication between audits carried out by the Ministry of Education, the Auditor-General and parliamentary committees.

“What the ministry is doing is what the Auditor-General is doing and is what PIC Parliament is doing. Duplication, nothing else,” Omboko said.

He questioned the need for three separate layers of scrutiny of school finances, arguing that the different systems were examining essentially the same financial records.

“What I know, from an education point of view, auditing schools is a same-line audit, and therefore these people are doing the same job, but duplicating it,” he said.

He said principals were now constantly preparing for reports from different audit systems or appearing before auditors and parliamentary committees.

“If they are not doing that, they are looking for money to give these people who dig,” he said.

Omboko argued that schools should instead return to the previous audit arrangement in which the Ministry of Education’s school audit system handled the institutions, with matters requiring further scrutiny being escalated to the Auditor-General.

He also called for scrutiny of the Auditor-General’s office itself, saying an independent audit of the office should establish whether there were any irregularities in the way audits of schools were being conducted.

Omboko said Parliament had provided for an independent firm to audit the Auditor-General and suggested that the firm should examine the allegations now being raised by school heads.

“We did pass that law in Parliament in the last session, as is required by law,” he said.