Government orders audit of FKF accounts, dealings

FKF president Nick Mwendwa and Sports CS Amina Mohamed

Football Kenya Federation (FKF) President Nick Mwendwa with Sports Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed when the Cabinet Secretary visited the Harambee Stars’ Africa Cup of Nations camp outside Paris on June 8, 2019.

Photo credit: File | Nation Media Group

What you need to know:

  • Football boss Mwendwa fails to block his possible arrest and prosecution

The Government last evening gave a thumbs up for an audit exercise to be carried on the activities and financial dealings of Football Kenya Federation and its president Nick Mwendwa.

The directive was issued to Sports Registrar Rose Wasike by Sports Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed, coming a day after Mwendwa failed in a bid to block his possible arrest and prosecution amid swelling accusations of misappropriation of funds leveled against him and the football body.

“Today, pursuant to Section 5(1) of the Sports Act, I have directed the Registrar of Sports to undertake the inspection of Football Kenya federation in accordance to the provisions of the Act,” a press statement from the Cabinet Secretary, issued Friday night said.

“She is expected to commence the exercise from 18th October, 2021, for a period of less than two weeks and submit a report to my office on or before 2nd November, 2021.

“The Ministry will assign the required Technical Officers and any other support required to perform this exercise.

“I urge the Football Kenya Federation officials to offer the Registrar necessary support to complete the task as soon as possible.”

Mwendwa, in October last year, rushed to the High Court in Nairobi in a bid to block the Banking Fraud Investigations Unit (BFIU) from acting on a complaint by journalist Milton Nyakundi that touched on the activities of the federation’s expenditure.

The football boss argued in court that the federation had put checks and balances in place to ensure monies received from the government and other partners including football’s world governing body Fifa, the Confederation of African Football (Caf), and the corporate world are used for the intended purposes.

But Justice James Makau disagreed, ruling that government agencies were allowed by law to act on complaints made in the public interest.

“The petitioners claim that the FKF Constitution and Fifa Statutes provide for a comprehensive mechanism of financial audit of all monies received by the FKF.
“However, I am not convinced that the existence of an audit mechanism negates the investigative jurisdiction of the DCI and DPP and specifically where a complaint of a financial crime has been made,” ruled Makau.

In the past three years, Mwendwa, who was overwhelmingly elected last September for his second four-year term, has been on the defensive on a number of financial dealings, and specifically the disappearance of an Outside Broadcast (OB) Van purchased by Fifa to the tune of Sh100 million to help commercialise the local game.

Validity of the payments

Meanwhile, Mwendwa and FKF have also hogged headlines after Auditor General Nancy Gathungu queried Sh11 million payments made to FKF President Nick Mwendwa without the requisite documents or authorisation. Gathungu explained, in her query, raised in June this year, that it was not possible to confirm the validity of the payments made to Mwendwa between April 26, 2019, and November 29, 2019.

Besides Amina and Gathungu, former Sports Principal Secretary Kirimi Kaberia (now serving in the same capacity in the Ministry of Industrialisation) raised questions an FKF’s accountability during his stint between 2017 and 2019.

The queries aside, there appears to be a breakdown in the relationship between FKF and a number of corporate bodies, as witnessed by an abrupt termination of sponsorship deals worth about a billion shillings with betting firms BetKing and Odibets.

“This move has been long overdue, given the financial situation at the federation led by Nick Mwendwa through questionable dealings with monies meant for football development,” Mwendwa’s predecessor Sam Nyamweya pointed out.

FKF has an annual budget of an approximated Sh1 billion each year, with most of these finances realised from government funding of the various national teams, Fifa grants to the tune of Sh200 million meant for administrative and logistics works, plus youth and women football development, including training of referees and coaches.

Downplaying Kenya’s talent

Meanwhile, Mwendwa is involved in a tussle with Wasike touching on the legitimacy of his current term of office.

Wasike has consistently maintained, via letters, that the FKF polls conducted last September and in which the football boss trounced other aspirants, were not held as per the Kenyan law.

Also, on Friday, Kenya Judo Association President Shadrack Maluki criticised Mwendwa for downplaying Kenya’s football talent.

Maluki, who is also Vice-President of the National Olympic Committee of Kenya (NOC-K), was reacting to Mwendwa’s statement earlier this week that Kenya lacked football talent. “Even if you bring Jose Mourinho, even if you bring Mikel Arteta…. the work that needs to be done is that we need to bring talents to the table. For you to win, you need quality players,” Mwendwa said on Monday.

“Let us look at Mali for example. Are we better than them? The answer is that we are not because we never brought our players to that level.”

He was speaking on Monday night at NTV’s The Game Plan show hosted by Carol Radull and featuring analysts Kieni Githinji and Roy Karuhize after Kenya’s 6-0 aggregate loss to Mali in the 2022 World Cup qualifiers.

“What motivation does a President give to the young, talented Kenyan players when he says there’s no talent in Kenya? Who is supposed to develop this talent?” posed Maluki.

Former Kenya international McDonald Mariga also responded by calling for Mwendwa’s resignation.