Whistleblower Report: JKUAT Vice Chancellor Victoria Ngumi Alleged Corrupt Dealings In The University Exposed

A whistleblower has written to the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission seeking the prosecution of Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) Vice Chancellor Victoria Ngumi for perpetrating corruption.

In the letter seen by Kenya Insights, where the whistleblower has attached documents such as the V-C’s letter threatening lecturer she suspects of leaking information as well as Auditor-General reports for 2022-2023, the whistleblower bring to the attention of EACC the massive corruption and abuse of office at the institution.

The letter says the VC is intimidating the University Academic Staff Union (UASU) members she suspects are behind the strike call.

UASU has called for a strikestarting September 1 to protest mismanagement, skewed promotions and other malpractices under Prof Ngumi.

One of the warning letters’ the V-C sent is to Naflaly Rugara, a lecturer at the institution.

The letter titled ‘Caution on Unprofessional Conduct Towards the Vice-Chancellor and Management of the University’ states that the management has noted with much concern that Rugara has in the recent past been consistently tainting the image of the Vice Chancellor and the Management of the University to the Staff, Students and other Stakeholders.

It states: “The University has recently allowed UASU to picket within the University premises uninterrupted. It has been the expectation of Management that through your leadership, UASU would objectively discuss their grievances keeping in mind the inevitable dire financial constraints the University has been facing. However. Management is concerned that on numerous occasions during the picketing and other forums, you have been heard publicly peddling lies particularly to UASU members, claiming among other things that the Vice- Chancellor has been mis-appropriating/ mismanaging public funds thus leading to delays in payment of salaries and the inability of the University to meet its financial obligations.”

It adds: “As a long-standing academic staff of the University, you are fully aware that all Public Universities have commonly been undergoing financial constraints due to drastic reforms in the education sector as well as drastic reduction and delays in release of capitation from Government.”

The letter signed by the V-C adds: “Your negative campaign against the Vice-Chancellor and Management of the University continues to hurt the image of the University which is unnecessary and unacceptable. It is in light of the above that you are hereby CAUTIONED against continuation of your unprofessional actions. Be notified that a repeat or continuation of the said acts shall leave the University with no option but to take disciplinary action against you.”

The letter is copied to the Chairman of JKUAT.

This comes as a new audit report tabled in parliament in June questions the viability and managerial competence of JKUAT Industrial Park after it registered losses for the fourth consecutive year.

In the latest report for the year ending June 30, 2023 and which was submitted to the National Assembly on June 11, this year, the auditor questions why a debt of Sh82.5 million has been outstanding for 90 days.

The auditor also questions why the park lacks a creditors’ policy.

The report states the park’s assets stand at Sh276 million while liabilities stand at Sh295 million, meaning that it has a deficit of Sh18.7 million.

This means the park cannot settle its debts when they fall due.

It adds that the park was forced to pay Sh1.6 million as a penalty after engaging a consultant to supply 3000 licenses for 6,000 employees and failed to pay, forcing the consultant to seek legal redress.

The principal amount of the contract was Sh26,250,000 but the late payments forced the consultant to sue, seeking monthly interest at 1% for 26 months amounting to Sh6.8 million which the park failed to pay.

The park further incurred an arbitration cost of Sh1.7 million for the lawyer and Sh650,000 as application costs.

The audit says the Board expenses totalled Sh1.4 million but there were no records showing attendance of the meetings.

The motor vehicle records and physical addresses of the members paid mileage allowances were also not provided for audit.

The audit states Sh4.1 million debt has been outstanding for more than 5 years with no movement over the years and no plan was provided for recovery.

It states the strategic initiatives the park put in place to address the losses did not yield fruits.

The statement says the park’s budget increased by Sh17 million after a consultancy was paid Sh58 million but no authority was provided approving the over expenditure.

The audit established though the park has an approved salary structure showing the lower and upper limit salary points, it does not show salary progression or annual salary increments.

Further, no information is provided on how long an employee takes to move from the lowest salary level to the highest level.

The park also awarded the tender for the lnsurance and WIBA to a local company that had quoted Sh5.4 million while the lowest bidder had quoted Sh4.9 million.

No reason was provided for not awarding the tender to the lowest bidder.

The park also hired consultants who were not in the prequalified list and were paid Sh27.3 million.

According to the park’s submission, its directors are Abdi Mohamud Hassan (chair), Ambassador (Eng) Mahbou M. Maalim, Prof Roben Kinyua, Prof. Benard Ikua, Prof Jackson Kwanza and Vice-Chancellor Prof Victoria Ngumi.

Also, another report of the Auditor-General Nancy Kathungu on Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology exposes financial misuse even as the institution seeks for more funds from the Exchequer.

And in what constitutes criminality, JKUAT paid a local furniture company Sh3.3 million to make a dental chair that was never delivered.

The University seems not to have learnt from the mistakes it made a couple of years back when it entered a noodle manufacturing venture for extra income only to incur losses to the tune of Sh3 million.

The varsity had sunk over Sh300 million in capital outlay to set up the noodles project only to record a net loss of Sh3.2 million in the first year of the roll out.

And now the report says JKUAT incurred heavy losses on its Industrial Park Limited, which is now turning out to be a white elephant project.

On the spot is the University Chancellor, Prof. Joseph Mathu Ndung’u who stands accused of allowing Vice-Chancellor Prof Victoria Wambui Ngumi free reign as she runs down the university.

According to the auditor, the financial position of JKUAT Industrial Park reflects retained earnings amounting to Sh138,954,378 while the corresponding balance is Sh140,054,214, resulting to unexplained variance of Sh1,099,836.

The auditor says the statement of changes in equity reflects a retained earnings balance of Sh175,032,960 which varies with the statement of financial position retained earnings by Sh36,078,582.

The statement of budgeted expenditure is Sh21,758,570 but the recalculated final budget amounts to Sh16,498,389, resulting to an unreconciled variance of Sh5,260,181.

The total budgeted revenue and expenses is given as Sh175,759,299 and Sh174,060,431, respectively, but the recalculated total revenue and expenses after the adjustments amounts to Sh217,037,485 and Sh169,800,250, resulting to unreconciled variances of Sh41,278,186 and Sh4,260,181.

The statement of profit or loss and other comprehensive income reflected nil income tax for both financial years.

However, the financial statements reflects income tax for 2021/2022 and 2020/2021 financial years amounting to Sh8,710,080 and Sh5,649,956, respectively.

The auditor states that the accuracy and completeness of the financial statements on Industrial Park could not be confirmed due to inaccurate property, plant and equipment balance.

The auditor reveals that the statement of financial position reflects nil inventory balance.

She discloses that a review of the stores records provided for audit revealed that a stock take exercise was carried out but the value of the stationery items in the inventory was not recorded in the stock and the inventory balances were also not disclosed in the financial statements.

The statement of profit or loss and other comprehensive income reflects revenue amounting to Sh12,300,151 but the receipt summary report provided amounted to Sh11,710,388 resulting to unreconciled variance of Sh589,763.

She faults the university for not providing supporting documents including creditors invoices, creditors aging analysis and the creditors policy.

The auditor pointed out that the corporate tax liability amounting to Sh77,494,784 has been outstanding for over three years and no explanation was given for the failure to remit the outstanding amounts to the Kenya Revenue Authority.

She faults the management for not providing supporting documents in relation to Sh125,100,000 owed by JKUAT which comprises an advance of Sh25,000,000 made on 17 June, 2019 and Sh100,000,000 advanced on 1 November, 2019 in respect of support of the University operations following requests by the University Management and unpaid share capital of Sh100,000 respectively.

The auditor reports that the fixed asset register provided did not reflect net book values of assets while the fixed asset register was not updated with some assets such as CCTV cameras, the number of routers, keyboard and mouse, cable managers, cables, monitors and CAT 6 patch panels.

She reveals that four officers on secondment to Industrial Park were paid salaries by the University instead of the park which is the entity in which they were deployed.

The University did not specify the duration of secondment for the officers which is contrary to its Human Resource policies.

The report states that acting Industrial Park Managing Director was paid sitting allowances for five sittings amounting to Sh100,000 but the payment was contrary to the State Corporation Act.

The Act states that Chief Executive Officers and Employees of a state Corporation are not entitled to such allowance.

The University also paid board members Sh740,000 without proper justification.

The park also procured goods from various suppliers during the 2021/2022 financial year totalling Sh460,991 through use of imprest contrary to public finance regulations.

The audit reveals irregularities on management of Maakaridi Grant Project where the Kenya National Innovation Agency disbursed innovation commercialization grant totaling Sh3,122,320. JKUAT industrial park limited was selected as the contact incubation unit to the innovation.

The grant was to run for 12 months up to a maximum of 15 months with a quarterly progress report for every 4 months.

A final report on overall progress, achievements, challenges, way forward and recommendation was to be submitted to Kenya National Innovation Agency. But the audit of the research grant showed the following anomalies;

No quarterly reports were submitted to Kenya National Innovation Agency as stipulated on the grant condition.

All goods, works and services were directly procured from one supplier contrary to the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal.

There was delay on the implementation of the project as a letter dated 2 March, 2021 indicated that the project funds should be fully utilized before 30 June, 2021 and final report submitted to KENIA. However, at the time of the audit, phase two of the project was still ongoing.

The audit exposes irregular procurement of legal services, stating administration costs amounted to Sh8,358,918 which includes consultancy fees of Sh839,000.

It states a law firm was paid a deposit of Sh826,000 for representation in high court in a petition.

But the following anomalies were observed.

First, the law firm was procured using direct procurement method and no documentary evidence was provided to confirm that the legal firm represented company as no records to support the commencement of the lawsuit and progress of the case were provided.

The law firm had quoted a legal fee of Sh7,060,000 and though negotiation minutes gave a discount of 50%, there was no certified valuation certificate on which the legal fee was based.

There was no documentary evidence provided by the company for efforts made to seek alternative dispute resolution mechanisms.

The audit states the university failed to comply with cash and bank management as its statement of financial position reflected cash and bank balances of Sh205,350,026.

But the cashbook balances for all the bank accounts was not provided for audit.

The management also did not submit bank reconciliation statements to the National Treasury.

It states though the management operated a standing imprest capped at Sh200,000, the total re-imbursement of expenses from the use of imprest was Sh472,517.

Further, the memorandum cashbook and the supporting payment receipts were not provided for audit.

The audit exposed that the internal controls over receipts were not effective and the park operated without an authorised staff establishment to guide staffing levels.

The auditor accuses the park of hiding books of account to escape scrutiny.

JKUAT dons to down tools on September 1

Meanwhile, lecturers at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUA) will on September 1, this year down tools unless the management addresses their grievances.

In the strike notice dated June 24, the Universities Academic Staff Union National Chairperson, Grace C. Nyongesa, National Secretary General, Dr Constantine Wasonga and National Treasurer, Dr Janepha K. Kumba lamented that the JKUAT management led by the Chairman of Council, Dr Micah Onsando and Vice Chancellor, Prof Victoria Ngumi have failed to address their concerns.

The letter signed by Dr Wesonga stated that the members of the Universities’ Academic Staff Union (UASU) at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture & Technology (JKUAT) chapter held a meeting on 17th May, 2024 at the University Pavilion to discuss their welfare, which the University Management has either refused, failed, or/and neglected to address.

In the meeting, the members resolved and declared that they shall withdraw their labour until the following concerns are addressed comprehensively:

First, failure to promote academic staff. They said failure to promote academic staff under the pretext of insufficient funds was detrimental to the career progression of faculty members.

Second, irregular and illegal use of JKUAT staff Retirement Benefits Scheme (JKUATSRBS) Funds.

They said since 2014, the University has not remitted the employer’s pension contribution (20% of the basic salary of each employee) to the JKUAT Staff Retirement Benefits Scheme (JKUATSRBS). From 2014 to 2023, they added, the University was remitting funds for individuals retiring in a particular year.

However, they added, the University has since ceased remittances and was only contributing the employee’s portion, instructing the trustees to use this money to pay retiring employees.

They said the practice was not only irregular but also illegal and exposes the scheme to the risk of collapsing.

The union said the members will withdraw their labour and not resume duty until their concerns are addressed.