A section of the companies involved in the Ksh9 Billion National Youth Service (NYS) scandal has been revealed.
According to reports, records of the entities believed to have been fraudulently paid the billions are either incomplete or missing from the company registry.
In an official database search of the registrar of companies carried out by the Nation, the search divulged that Ameratrade Enterprises, Ngiwako Enterprises, and Ersatz Enterprises are not recorded in the system.
"When a search of a company at the official register done manually returns a “no result”, it means as far as the companies’ registry is concerned, those companies do not exist," an official at the registrar's office was quoted.
[caption caption="File image of NYS Recruits"]
[/caption]
Reports indicate that other companies being investigated over the scandal are Annwaw Investments, Calabash Investments, Arkroad Holdings Ltd, Kunjiwa Enterprises, and Jerrycathy Enterprises.
Out of the 10 companies looked into by the media house, only three were properly registered as companies with two directors each, two were registered as business names with one owner each, while three could not be traced at all at the company registry.
According to officials at the NYS, about 40 companies are claimed to be involved in the NYS fraud and are under investigation.
The government and its agencies are only required to do business with formally registered companies, which must also be registered as taxpayers and have a PIN certificate as well as a VAT certificate.
On Monday, Anti-banking fraud detectives froze accounts of 13 firms linked to the alleged theft from the NYS.
In a ruling, Nairobi Chief Magistrate Francis Andayi gave a go-ahead for the police to withhold all the monies in the accounts of the accused companies for 90 days pending investigations.
While NYS has pumped billions into fake entities, Mediamax has learnt that genuine suppliers are facing ruin as auctioneers descend on their property.
[caption caption="File image of NYS Recruits "]
[/caption]
