According to an audit report, the Ministry of Education could have lost more than Sh3.7 billion over the course of two years linked to inflation while implementing programes.
It entails inflating student numbers, creating ghost schools, and making multiple payments to select institutions in order to siphon money from taxpayers.
The false numbers are then used to transmit billions of dollars to schools for free primary and secondary school education.
Gathungu found in a new audit covering the previous financial year that Ministry of Education officials overpaid roughly 2,610 public secondary schools in various counties by Sh1.81 billion.
“The overpayments arose from erroneous computations of July and September 2019 disbursements, inflation of enrollment numbers in January, 2020 and double payments to some schools,” the report reads.Of that amount, the report says Sh26.83 million was disbursed to five schools whose existence was in doubt.
The Ministry of Education is one of the heavily funded ministries in the Jubilee administration as it oversees the implementation of free primary and secondary education. This amount includes Sh62.2 billion for free secondary education, Sh12 billion for free primary and Sh4.2 billion for improvement of school infrastructure.In 2018-19, the ministry disbursed as much as Sh919.17 million to schools that could not be traced.
The schools had no identification numbers, some of which could not be traced in the National Education Management Information System (Nemis) and the list of TSC-registered schools.
The 2018-19 audit also shows that the ministry lost Sh8.02 million through irregular disbursements to low-cost boarding schools in the counties.
Of the amount, Sh6.57 million was excess payment made as a result of the state department using enrolment figures that were higher than those confirmed by the county directors of education in some schools.
“A balance of Sh1.45 million was paid to undeserving schools not in the list of low-cost boarding Schools confirmed by the county directors of education,” the audit report reads.
In addition, the ministry, through the state department, made overpayments amounting to Sh369.90 million to 99 primary schools sampled from 13 counties because of inflation of enrolment data.
Further, the ministry made overpayment of subsidy funds amounting to Sh105.90 million to 331 public secondary schools in different counties as a result of inflated enrolment data.
“A comparison of the disbursement schedules for terms 1 and 2 of 2019 with the schedules for term 3 of 2018 for sampled counties revealed discrepancies between the data submitted by the schools and the data reflected by the State Department that was used for calculation of subsidy amounts due to schools,” the report reads.
As a result of the manipulation of enrolment data, the ministry made overpayment amounting to Sh269.25 million to 185 schools from 11 counties. In addition, two non-existent schools in Kakamega received a total of Sh27.32 million during the year.
