Government Has Been Funding Education For 500,000 Ghost Pupils

Kenya is a country running on the wheels of corruption. It seems everyone working for the government must first be a thief who steals like there is no tomorrow.

It has now been revealed that the government, through the Ministry of Education, has been paying billions of shillings for free primary education to schools and kids that don’t exist.

According to the Cabinet Secretary for Education, Professor George Magoha, the Ministry of Education has been funding for more than 500,000 pupils in schools that don’t exist.

Given that the free primary education program has been in existence for close to 17 years, Kenyans might have lost billions of shillings through this corruption syndicate.

With the current calculations, Kenyans have been losing at least 750,000,000 (750 million shillings) annually. You can imagine how many billions have been lost since the program started.

Given that this grand theft has been happening for years, it has been happening with the full knowledge of some top officials at the Ministry of Education.

The rooting out of 500,000 ghost pupils, according to Professor George Magoha, was a result of the use of NEMIS, a digital registration for all school-going children in Kenya.

At some point, some government officials and some headteachers were against the system saying some pupils had been left out of it. Some headteachers have also been inflating the numbers to steal from the government.

As Magoha discovers the grand theft in his ministry, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EAAC) has started a probe into his conduct that they termed “unethical.”

George Magoha is accused of having “insulted” a government official by calling him “fool and idiot” in an incident that was captured on tape. The education official in question has been summoned by EACC to record a statement.

Is it that the cartels are now fighting back?

READ: Only Two Out Of 10 Pupils Are Wearing Masks In Village Schools