JOHANNESBURG. The Swedish aid agency Sida is rocked by a funding scandal with a former employee involved. As many as 700 African post-graduate students according to Africascan´s estimates, may have lost out on scholarships over the past ten years due to a fraudulent scheme in Kenya that is now investigated by Swedish police.
A Kenyan NGO, Afrepren, is investigated for having assisted a former official at Sida to siphon off some SEK 20 million ($ 2.8 million, € 2.5 million) over the past ten years.
The money was given to Afrepren, African Energy Policy Research Network, by Sida to run a pan-African post graduate scholarship fund for energy science students.
Sida officials are numb about the matter as it is now in the hands of the police.
Meanwhile phone calls to Afrepren and the Executive Director of Afrepren, Stephen Karekezi, are unanswered.
According to Afrepren´s website, www.afrepren.org, it offers a maximum of $ 4000 (SEK 28 000, € 3600) in grants for students doing a Masters degree in energy studies at a State university.
The Swedish police are investigating the matter, after Sida itself suspected there were irregularities and reported it to the police in July.
The Swedish National office against corruption is investigating the possibility of charging the former Sida official, who used to administer the Afrepren applications, for serious breach of trust against the employer or, alternatively, serious fraud. On the Kenyan side it is a high, unnamed, official who is pointed out.
The Swedish police are assuming that there are more than the two principal suspects involved.
“Aid is complex and it is not likely that it is technically possible for only one person to do this on their own. It also seems as this has been systematic and not just a one off, said Per Nichols, prosecutor at the National office against corruption to the Stockholm newspaper Dagens Nyheter (DN), which broke the story.
Some ten million, said DN, ended up at an account in Holland. The remaining ten million seem to have vanished completely.
It is also unclear how the international accountancy KPMG in Kenya, which have done annual audits, failed to blow the whistle.
Exactly how the money has disappeared is not yet outlined. An auditor from Ernst & Young, Carl-Gustaf Gutberg, is presently in Nairobi to do a thorough audit.
It seems as the former Sida official was paid twice. He had his salary from Sida plus that he was paid by Afrepren as a consultant.
It was Sida itself that brought the matter to the police´s attention. It sent its own auditors to Nairobi in June and found serious irregularities.
The police have since expanded its scoop. It swooped on Sida´s offices early in November after the story had broken in the media. It walked away with some 35 boxes of documentation that dealt with Sida´s and Afrepren´s relations.
Looking at Afrepren´s web site the organization seems to have an extensive energy research network across Africa. Though the site lacks details and have not been updated thoroughly, just about everyone mentioned, there are representatives in a dozen African countries, have serious academic CVs.
Kenya is a major Nordic donor destination. Sida alone transfers more than SEK 200 million to Kenya annually.
Money have disappeared before in Kenya. In 2002 about SEK 2.5 million (€ 285000) destined for a Kenya based housing project, African Housing Fund, disappeared.
Kenya is a major Nordic donor destination. Sida alone transfers more than SEK 200 million to Kenya annually.
Africascan view:
This is not a Kenyan matter. It is a universal problem that donors have to face up to more and more.
There will be more scandals popping up in Africa, which receives a growing part of Nordic aid.
Up until now the few cases that have sprung to the surface have done so thanks to whistleblowers or carelessness.
The most prominent of Nordic aid scandals probably was the conviction of the former anti-apartheid cleric Allan Boesak. He spent half of a three year in prison sentence after a court found that he had stolen money from the poor. His career is still in tatters.
In many way´s it is quite astonishing that there isn´t more fraud brought to the public´s attention than there is. The reasons that there are so few incidents could be either that matters are covered up, if possible, or that controls are so tight that it is more or less impossible to squander money.
Neither is likely. Handouts, as aid is all about, is too tempting when you have no money. After all it is a lot less risky to steal from an aid agency than to rob a bank.
Sida and the Nordic aid agencies handles well over € 3 billion in grants annually, by far the most goes to Africa.
Ps. Africascan has received a grant, SEK 180 000, from a small enterprise fund, Start-Syd, that supports Swedish companies to set up business in Africa. The money is to be used for start-up related investments and for skills transfer.
Kenya – in and out of fashion
Kenya have alway´s been a top destination for Swedish aid. It had a bit of a dip during Daniel arap Moi´s last years in power – the Nordic countries had different levels of moratoria in place, but aid resumed after the former government party Kanu lost the last election the National Rainbow Coalition.
After a year or two of promising action Sida and other donors, as indeed people in Kenya, have lost some faith in president Mwai Kibaki´s and his government. His ability to tackle the widespread corruption in Kenya is questioned widely.
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