The Jomo Kenyatta University of Science Agriulture and Technology (JKUAT) Vice Chancellor on Thursday admitted that the university lost Sh27 Million to a director of its Rwanda campus.
Speaking to the National Assembly Public Investments Committee, Prof. Mabel Imbuga reported how the director Anthony Luvanda swindled them out of the money under the pretense of purchasing land for the Kigali campus.
Mr Luvanda reportedly got the money from an irregular Sh18 Million loan facility taken from I&M Bank Rwanda and some Sh9 Million fees collected from students and went underground in November after the theft.
The VC told the committee that the university had approved the purchasing of the land for its Kigali campus but not the loan facility from the bank to finance the buying of the land.
She revealed that Luvanda had secretly approached the bank for a loan while the university was pursuing requisite Ministry of Education approvals, then he disappeared shortly after getting the loan.
“We are investigating how they managed to get the loan without guarantee from Kenya or requisite approvals from the university council,” Imbuga said.
Last month, a parliamentary watchdog launched investigations into how Kenyatta University and JKUAT invested millions of shillings in setting up campuses in Rwanda and Tanzania after the chief executive officer of the Commission of University Education Prof David Some said the setting up of campuses outside Kenya were not approved by the commission.
However, the two universities in April received consents from the Ministry of Education and the National Treasury to set up campuses in Rwanda and Tanzania with both using about Sh450 million to set up campuses in the two countries.
