Seven senior officials in President Uhuru Kenyatta's Jubilee party have been kicked out of office after allegedly receiving millions to fraudulently print and sell nomination certificates.
The fake certificate racket is said to have been unravelled after the party started receiving inquiries from aspirants about money that was non-existent.
“We discovered that something was amiss when we started receiving complaints from some aspirants about paying money which was not receipted as required,” revealed an official from the party.
The official claimed that the seven, including three senior officials and four IT department staff, conspired and promised to assist aspirants in the upcoming primaries.
He divulged that over 50 aspirants had already been swindled and wired millions of shillings to the group, purporting to secretly print for them official nomination certificates and ballot papers.
The source added that the aspirants were duped into paying Sh200,000 and Sh500,000 each in the scam ahead of the nomination, set for April 21.
It is alleged that among those crying foul over the scandal are three gubernatorial aspirants- including one who reportedly lost an excess of Sh2 Million- seven senatorial contenders, Members of Parliament (MPs) and ward representatives.
According to a report by the Standard, the gullible hopefuls are said to have been cheated into believing that the group was involved in the preparation and printing of ballot papers and certificates.
When the deal was discovered, the seven employees were first arrested before a top party official intervened to have them released without being charged.
Reports indicate that the official who called for their release stated that the matter was to be dealt with internally by the party to avoid bad publicity ahead of the nomination exercise.
