Former Bungoma Governor Wycliffe Wangamati has denied allegations of misappropriation of county funds flagged in a recent audit conducted by Governor Kenneth Lusaka’s administration.

Lusaka had in a statement on Thursday, November 6, claimed that some Ksh19 million may have been lost to ghost students enrolled in the county’s Education Scholarship Programme during Wangamati’s five-year tenure.

According to Lusaka, a task force unveiled on September 19 to audit the Scholarship Fund established shocking cases of 524 ghost students, overpayments to schools and cases of one recipient receiving multiple allocations.

Lusaka also said that teams tasked with auditing the status of the county’s human resources and eligibility of pending bills had flagged massive irregularities.

But in a statement on Monday, Wangamati dismissed the claims further accusing Lusaka, who made a return to the county in the August polls after losing to the former in the 2017 elections, of a political witch hunt.

Wangamati, while denying fraudulent dealings in the Scholarship Fund, termed claims of ghost students as an outrageous allegation.

He said the cases Lusaka’s team referred to as “ghost students” were selected to schools by the Ministry of Education.

The task force had alleged that hundreds of beneficiaries could not be traced to schools where the county says they were admitted. Some of the schools include Chebukaka Girls Secondary School, Chesamisi Boys and Kibuk Girls High School.

In its report, the task force said the use of cheque payments instead of the recommended IFMIS system was intentional, alluding that it created an avenue for abuse of the scholarship program.

In response, Wangamati said: “If the finding was not a hurried afterthought, the task force would have established that all the cases they refer to as ‘ghost students’ were in fact selected to those specific schools by the Ministry of Education’s Nemis system.”

“A little more investigation would have revealed that each of the said students’ scholarship application form was supported by among other things an admission letter to High School which was issued NOT by the County Government but by the Ministry of Education and printed from the Nemis Portal. At what point did they become “ghost students”? When they were selected by the Nemis system for various schools or when they were awarded scholarships by the County?

“A task force using taxpayers’ money should not be allowed to do such shoddy work! A quick check through two of the mentioned schools reveals the following.”

The former county boss insisted that the program had benefited 10,650 needy students since its launch in 2018.

He said his administration had rolled out a thorough vetting process to identify deserving students.

For purposes of equity, the governor said, students were identified and picked at Village Unit level in each ward in a process that was open and transparent.

“We often allowed participation of the local community to corroborate details submitted by applicants,” Wangamati said.

“Names of all these students, contact persons (parents/guardians) and schools admitted to are found at each of the 45 Ward Offices in the County and at the Head Office in the Department of Education and Vocational Training.”

On claims that the identification of beneficiaries was flawed and that undeserving cases were awarded scholarships to the disadvantage of deserving cases, Wangamati said nothing could be further from the truth.

“The process of vetting is vigorous and involves home visitations. With the help of primary school heads, some of the very needy cases who may not even know of the existence of scholarships are flagged and guided to apply for scholarships immediately after release of KCPE results,” he said.

“Even in cases where some applicants give false information, members of the public have often volunteered information that necessitated double checking. Without the task force giving a list of names of students classified as ‘undeserving’, the wards they come from and the schools admitted to, it’s hard to vouch for the credibility of their findings.”

He further denied claims that payments were made to ghost projects saying, “Isn’t it ironical that a taskforce formed to look into pending bills, value for money and project delivery actually sat down to write a report on the basis of photographs!

“I have been Governor for 5 years. I can tell you that I had so much to do that I didn’t have time to attend to everything but I never ever assessed the state of any project from photographs. I always visited a project I wanted to inspect wherever it was. Here is a task force whose only remit was to assess projects on the ground vis a vis payments choosing to stay in hotels eating sausages and looking at photographs to write a report instead of visiting sites! This is too shoddy a report to comment upon.”

He threatened legal action against the county leadership and members of the task force in their individual capacities to protect his image.

“To protect my integrity and the integrity of all those involved, I will be taking legal action against the County leadership and members of the task force in their individual capacities,” he threatened.

Meanwhile, Wangamati has asked Lusaka to stop harassing Bungoma staffers amid plans to conduct a head count to weed out ghost workers.

“Stop the political witch-hunt and concentrate on delivering on your mandate and fulfilling your promises to the people of Bungoma,” he said.

“Stop harassing staff and work with and for everybody. In 2017, worked with your Executive for 1.5 years. I never pushed anyone out. In fact, I renewed contracts of some, promoted others and worked to the end with some of your most loyal staff. It was not a favor to them. It was respect for their service to the people. You too have a duty to respect every staff member.”