Details have emerged on how four ICT Authority employees managed to steal Ksh184 million from its bank account without detection.
The four employees; Felix Ongaga, Peter Mwangi, Daniel Ouma and Anthony Nyaga, exploited a loophole in the management of petty cash payments.
The standing provision that payments below Ksh500,000 did not require the approval of the CEO was the only chance that they needed to siphon Ksh184 million.
[caption caption="A booth by ICT Authority in a past event"]
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"The withdrawals by 3rd and 4th respondents were done at an average of 4 to 13 transactions in a day all below Ksh500,000," a statement by Asset Recovery Agency (ARA) reads.
When the suspicious eye of a bank employee finally smoked out the well-orchestrated theft, ARA managed to freeze their bank accounts holding a total of Ksh6.4 million through court orders.
The four remarkably managed to hide the scam for more than one year without detection by avoiding the involvement of the then ICT Authority acting CEO Robert Mugo.
The first batch of suspicious transactions totalling Ksh29 million was carried out between January 2016 and December 2016, while the second batch worth Ksh155.8 million was wired from the ICT Authority's bank accounts at Citi Bank between January and July 2017.
A decision by the ICT Authority board had resolved that the acting CEO, Mugo, and the Director of Corporate Services, Ongaga, would authorise all transactions above Ksh500,000.
The directive further required that Ongaga or the acting Finance Manager Ouma would authorize transactions below Ksh500,000 as reported by Business Daily.
The two later recruited the authority's accountant, Mwangi, and Nyaga, a cashier, into a team that allegedly orchestrated the secretive looting spree.
[caption caption="Former ICT Authority acting CEO Robert Mugo with ICT Cabinet Secretary Joe Mucheru in a past event"]
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Mwangi and Nyaga would create requests in the system while Ouma and Ongaga would approve with the money either delivered by Wells Fargo cash courier services or picked from the bank by the accountant or the cashier.
The cover was finally blown up on July 14, 2017, when a relationship manager at Citi Bank alerted Mugo, the acting CEO, of the series of suspicious transactions below Ksh500,000 which saw the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) act on the case.
