Gun Association Officials Under Probe Over Claims of Fraud at Federation

The National Gun Association of Kenya (NGAO)’s Kenya Défensive Pistol Federation has been put on the spot over fraud claims.

This is after officials said some of the Sh39million allocated for the 2023 IDPA Africa Championships by the Sports Ministry through the Sports Fund had been misused.

The money in question is said to be more than Sh1 million, officials said.

Police wrote to officials of the Federation in August 2023 seeking information regarding the particular transaction.

The matter however remains unsolved up to now, officials said.

DCI officials handling the matter said the probe is ongoing albeit slowly.

The DCI deputy head of investigations Paul Wachira said they are investigating a case of alleged misuse of public funds by officials of the Kenya Defensive Pistol Federation in respect of payments made to a company by the name Oceanevo.

“To enable us progress with our investigations, kindly furnish us with the following: All bank accounts operated by Kenya Defensive Pistol Federation and details of signatories and all records in respect to disbursements received by Kenya Defensive Pistol Federation from the Ministry of Sports and the Arts for a period of two years,” said part of the letter dated August 25, 2023.

The officer also asked for the list of all officials of Kenya Defensive Pistol Federation, their particulars and organization structure and brief history regarding registration, management/operation and mandate of Kenya Defensive Pistol Federation.

“In addition to the above, we hereby seek an appointment for the investigators to meet your officials to enable them to understand. We lock forward to your prompt response.”

It’s not clear if the grilling sessions took place and the fate of the probe.

The three signatories to the NGAOKenya Defensive Pistol Federation namely Martin Chengo as Chairman, Ahmed Shamsuddin as Secretary General and Jonathan Wakahe who is the treasurer fraudulently paid a company called Oceanevo Trading Company for goods that were never procured and had no approved payment voucher.

The goods were also never in the budget, and were not authorized by the Local Organising Committee appointed by the Cabinet Secretary Youth Affairs, Creative Economy and Sports Ababu Namwamba.

The three signatories were members of the Local Organising Committee.

The three signatories are still in office holding the same positions as chairman, secretary general and treasurer of both the National Gun Owners Association (NGAO Kenya) and NGAOKenya Defensive Pistol Federation amid probe.

Chengo also sits on the Firearms Licensing Board.

Efforts to get a comment from the officials were futile.

Insiders said it also remains to be seen what an audit of the federation accounts by the auditor general will yield.