BlackFacts Details

Kenya: Top Officials 'Stole HIV Projects Cash'

From manipulating contracts and tenders, demanding bribes, circumventing procurement regulations, to demanding kickbacks upfront to process their funds, senior government officials, parliamentarians and crooked NGOs misappropriated money in four key World Bank funded projects during President Kibaki's era.

The confidential Kenya Detailed Implementation Review report, leaked by whistleblower website Wikileaks, now confirms the massive corruption in the bank's own projects, and mismanagement of some project funds by some officials and NGOs, despite a spirited denial by the bank's Kenyan unit that there was no loss of funds.

The report by World Bank's internal anti-corruption unit, the Department of Institutional Integrity (INT), reviewed four of the bank's projects in Kenya involving Sh37.64 billion in bank financing and found that they had "numerous indicators of serious irregularities", as well as "actual occurrences of fraud and corruption consistent with findings of previous forensic audits and examinations."

The Sh5.27 billion Dare project, the World Bank review said, had evidence of widespread corruption perpetrated by Ministry of Health officials resulting in the loss of Sh548.28 million, after the investigators reviewed project contracts worth Sh759.16 million.

The Sh5.78 billion Free Primary Education Support Project was the only programme funded by the World Bank that had less irregularities, but still had Ministry of Education (MoE) officials fingered for 'conflict of interest and procurement irregularities."

Literature Facts

Education Facts