It has now emerged that a government official pocketed Ksh174,000 per month on top of his salary for close to a year without being noticed by his employer.
According to submission by the office of the Auditor General before the National Assembly Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Monday, February 8, it was established that the civil servant was earning Ksh465,212 instead of the Ksh290,758 indicated on the employment letter.
The Public Accounts Committee learnt that the said employee received the letter to join the government in 2019.
State Department for Planning's Principal Secretary, Saitoti Torome, explained that the extra money was wired to the civil servant's account for months due to a mix-up error where the letter of the civil servant in question was confused to that of a senior civil servant.
The government employee was further castigated for receiving the money and remaining silent for all that time.
“You only stopped this anomaly once the auditor raised the issue. This is fraud and this is a matter that should be taken up by the graft agency,” stated Committee Chairman and Ugunja Member of Parliament, Opiyo Wandayi.
The PS told the committee that a repayment system had been developed in attempt to recover Ksh2,343,507 lost in the process.
“You cannot clean this issue with repayment. This is now a matter of the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission,” Wandayi added.
Wandayi hinted that the case raised a red flag of a bigger scheme to defraud the government. He argued that before the salary was released, the office involved was aware of the payments.
"The money can't come from anywhere. It was budgeted for," the committee chair argued.
Following the revelations, the Ugunja MP issued orders to the state department to appear before the committee in the coming session to give a detailed report how the money was wired into the account of the undisclosed civil servant without being noticed.
