Did detectives ignore first alert over National Youth Service scam?

Details of the crooked manner in which six companies in collusion with suppliers and procurement officers went to load millions of shillings in procuring fictitious goods and services have emerged.

Documents in our possession show situations where the same item was procured over 20 times within two weeks under different local purchase orders (LPOs). This happened even as it emerged that although Devolution Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru wrote to the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) over this scandal, another officer had already raised the alarm but his letter was somewhat ignored.

Dickson Gisiora, an NYS officer, had written to the CID on May 26, 2015 informing them that the IFMIS password for Senior Assistant Director General Adan Gedow had been stolen.

However, no action was taken until Ms Waiguru wrote a similar letter to CID on June 5 when 12 officers launched an investigation.

Indeed, Gisiora's letter seems to have been ignored because in CID's advance investigations report, reference is made to Waiguru's letter as being the factor that made investigations to commence. Part of the CID report reads, "Investigations into the above matter was launched on Friday June 5, 2015 following receipt of a letter by DCI from Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru referenced NO: MDP/3/1/81 dated June 5 this year."

The pricing from one order to another would vary from between Sh500,000 to Sh1 million yet the item was of similar quantity in almost all instances. Tender sum for most of those orders varied between Sh12.5 million to Sh13.5 million.

At least two items identified as"'hard material" and "soft material" were procured under various local purchase orders to a tune of more that Sh300 million. The materials were allegedly meant for a 3.5km road construction in Nairobi's Kibera slum upgrade. A kilometer of tarmac costs about Sh15 million.

If the scheme had gone to fruition, it would have cost the taxpayer well over Sh100 million per kilometer to tarmac the said 3.5km road in Kibera.

These factious commitments were contained in a letter written by Devolution Principal Secretary Peter Mangiti to his Treasury counterpart Kamau Thuggeh asking the ministry to decommit the items because they had been irregularly committed.