Details emerge on how Youth Fund lost millions through dubious dealings

The youth fund awarded a fictitious Ksh 180 shilling ICT tender at more than 30 times the cost of an existing one. Public Service, Gender and Youth Affairs Cabinet Secretary Sicily Kariuki told MPs that corruption has permeated the fund, forcing her to write to President Uhuru Kenyatta to disband its board.

Appearing before the Public Investments Committee, CS Kariuki, who inherited a docket rocked by runaway corruption from Anne Waiguru, has questioned why the youth fund mess went on under the watch of the Ministry.

The question has for long been who takes responsibility for the looting of 180 million shillings engineered in a calculated web that followed systematic actions by the suspended Chief Executive Officer Catherine Namuye and the Youth Fund Board Chair Bruce Odhiambo.

It is already clear that some of those actions were unilaterally executed by Odhiambo, the Cabinet Secretary revealing her recommendation to the President, a week ago, to suspend Odhiambo and 8 of his colleagues on the board to avoid chances of interference with ongoing investigations.

With the 180 million shillings having gone to the Quorandum Company Limited for what was claimed to be an ICT strategy and a design of an it system to manage the institution’s transactions, the Cabinet Secretary has revealed that there already existed a five year ICT strategy that cost 5.9 million shillings. How then did senior officials at the fund decide to award a tender costing more than thirty similar projects?

“I am lost personally…the chair executes roles yet he is supposed to be a non-executive chair…information has been hidden from me for cover up, all this info has to be made public,” said CS Kariuki.

Still walking free is the Managing Director of Quorandum Limited, the recipient of the millions of shillings, despite admitting to receiving the money, for work he never delivered.

A situation that now leaves the CS, who has been at the helm for just three months, overwhelmed by the firefighting that corruption has forced on her.