The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission is gearing up to charge senior officials from Siaya County for siphoning state funds.
Speaking to the press on Sunday, EACC Chief Executive Officer Twalib Mbarak noted that the staff members have been collecting imprests but failing to remit the same to the state.
He further noted that through the scheme, one of the suspects made away with Ksh18 million, funds expected to boost service delivery for Kenyans.
"For Siaya County, there is an issue of misuse of money through imprest collection and not surrendering," stated Mbarak.
"We have recommended senior staff of Siaya County to be charged including one who pocketed about Ksh18 million."
The scandal first broke in November last year after it emerged that large sums of money were being withdrawn from the county's accounts.
Appearing in a media interview in mid-2023, Siaya Deputy Governor William Oduol claimed that he detected abnormal activity in the imprest accounts.
The DG further alleged that upon summoning the county's finance officers and threatening to report them to EACC, they stated that the matter was beyond their control.
“Owing to my background in finance, I would periodically view the finances of the county. Towards the tail end of November, I started noticing huge and abnormal withdrawals from the imprest account,” he stated.
“They confessed that they had been withdrawing and taking (the cash) to the office of the governor for county operations."
Oduol claimed that he reached out to the governor who denied sanctioning the withdrawals. He estimated that a total of Ksh100 million had disappeared. The two leaders then went on a crash course after fallout at the time.
In his latest address, however, Mbarak failed to disclose the identities of the senior officials accused of misappropriating the funds.
