School heads lose millions to KCSE fraudsters

By JAMES MBAKA

The Kenya National Examination Council (Knec) has revealed that fraudsters have been conning secondary school principals, promising to help them secure better grades  in the 2013 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education exam results.

Knec said the imposters have been calling school heads while posing as the Chief Executive Officer, Paul Wasanga, or as employees of the council.

According to Knec’s Head of Public Communication, Frida Were, the fraudsters have asked some head teachers to pay huge sums of money through mobile phone payment platforms.

Those behind the scheme promise secondary heads that they can intervene on their behalf in the yet to be released 2013 KCSE results so that their schools’ results are not cancelled over examination irregularities.

She said the incidents had also been reported by head teachers of primary schools during the processing of the 2013 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education exam results.

The KCPE results were released on December 31, last year.

“This matter has been reported to the police and we wish to ask all that are approached to be wary of these fraudsters and report them to the nearest police station to enable their tracking and charging in court,” Ms Were said in a statement

The marking of the 2013 KCSE examinations was completed in December and the council is expected to release the results towards the end of February.

The unscrupulous fraudsters have been targeting well performing schools from the rural areas, fleecing school heads of millions of shillings while claiming that irregularities had been detected in their schools during the marking exercise.

They tell the head teachers that they not only have the ability to “clean” the irregularities but can also give the schools better grades for a fee.

The decision by Knec to issue the alert aims to allay fears that some of the fraudsters involved could be junior employees of the council, now threatening to damage the council’s reputation.

According to the examinations body,  the fraudsters are using the following mobile phone numbers: 0705488539, 0727802477, 0728 470458, 0714 563778, 0720720968, 0728 470473 and 0704 151897.