Police officer, three teachers in custody over alleged exam irregularity in Makueni

Police officers manning the ongoing KCSE examinations. [James Omoro, Standard]

Police in Wote, Makueni County will hold until Monday, three teachers and a police officer arrested today for allegedly being part of exam irregularities in the county.

According to Makueni County Police Commander Joseph Ole Napeiyan, the three were arrested after investigators traced circulating a Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) exam leaked paper said to have originated from their school, Ngungi Secondary School in Kalawa, Mbooni East Sub-County.

“There was information that was received by the Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) headquarters exam monitoring centre indicating a leaked exam paper; Kiswahili Paper 2 (Lugha) code 102/2 and the origin was traced all the way to Ngungi secondary in Mbooni hence the arrest of those suspects,” Napeiyan told the Saturday Standard.

Those arrested were Justus Wakanyumu (the school principal), the centre supervisor, Mr Kennedy Odhiambo Akongo, an invigilator and a security officer stationed at the school.

The police boss revealed through a multi-agency approach, police were able to conduct a search within the said school and managed to recover a photocopy of the real examination paper and a mobile phone.

“Upon arrival at the school our team conducted a comprehensive search and found Kiswahili Lugha Paper 2 together with a mobile phone suspected to have been used in circulating the paper hidden adjacent to the school boys’ toilet,” he added

Further, police officers accompanied by education officials confiscated phones that were under the possession of cooks, an invigilator, a security officer manning the centre and the centre manager.

The Police Commander said that the phones are under analysis to establish the chief supplier of the exam paper that was reported to have gone viral on Thursday morning.

Detectives are also investigating possibilities that the Kiswahili Paper was photocopied and copies scanned at a cyber within Wote market.

“We will present the four in court on Monday morning since by then the investigating officer will have collected enough evidence and analysis on the obtained phones will have been thoroughly conducted,” he said.