Sh18M Meant For The Elderly Paid To ‘Ghost Workers’

The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) might have paid ‘ghost workers’ Sh18.5 million to help in mapping during the 2019 Kenya Population and Housing Census, a parliamentary committee has heard.

The revelation emerged yesterday at a meeting between KNBS officials with the National Assembly’s Public Investments Committee, where signatures of the Sh18 million beneficiaries were not provided, yet the money was spent.

Director-general George Obudho said they did not have signatures of the elders, who received the money paid in cash.

Lawmakers cast doubt on the exercise, saying the irregularity was an indication that the elders might have misled the KNBS might have been misled by the elders and relied on the wrong statistics to arrive at the final report.

The committee has given KNBS a week to present a list of all their staff who were given the money to pay the elders so that the money can be recovered from them since there is no evidence that they paid out the money.

The agency involved elders in the counties to help their staff in the mapping exercise during the census exercise at a tune of Sh18,509,600.