EACC give Parliament 21 days to seal corruption loopholes

The Parliamentary Service Commission has been given a three-week ultimatum by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission to show how it will seal the loopholes which MPs have been using to mint millions in fraudulent claims.
And in the next two weeks, the anti-graft body will be descending on Parliament to investigate official and MPs suspected to be involved in fraud.
Among the areas the anti-graft body want cleaned up is the management of the payroll, mechanism to monitor mileage claims by the MPs and stipulation of the minimum hours House members can attend a sitting before they are entitled to their allowances.
Also under the spotlight is the management of car logbooks and land title deeds which MPs acquire through the Parliamentary Service Commission loan schemes and are retained by Parliament.

This has been prompted after it came to light that MPs in the past parliaments walked away without paying the debts because the collaterals were not retained.
EACC chief executive officer Halakhe Waqo said on Friday that the report had unearthed disturbing issues surrounding the National Assembly.
“A mere perception that corruption is prevalent in Parliament would imply that the government is losing the war on corruption,” said Mr Waqo.

MISSING TITLE DEEDS
The report detailed titles deeds of MPs who took mortgages could not be accounted for.

Among them are Hassan Abdirahaman’s mortgage worth Sh19 million, Moses Cheboi, Sh12 million, Zainab Chidzuga, Sh16 m, Senators Yusuf Chanzu and Chris Obure Sh14 million and Sh13 million respectively.
Deputy Speaker Joyce Laboso is among MPs who took car loans but the logbooks are not reflected in the list of documents kept at Parliament. Her outstanding balance is Sh5 million. Senator Beatrice Elachi also has a loan of Sh5 million.
The audit report presented to National Assembly Speaker on Friday highlighted the lack of sound financial systems and outright fraud on the part of the legislators as some of the avenues that the MPs have presided over financial haemorrhage of the public coffers.
The massive rot exposed by the anti-graft body detailed how former MPs continue to earn salaries, current members make false mileage claims and some paid for sittings they never attended because their colleagues signed them present.
That former MPs are still on the payroll has been blamed on the failure by the House commission to update the payroll.

Also, there is a loophole where the National Assembly clerk is not involved in the approval of the payroll, despite the regulations that he should authorise all salaries.
The anti-graft agency didn’t say the exact number of former legislators still earning perks saying the audit report was based on a sample and that they will conduct a detailed investigation to uncover the magnitude of the rot.
Several MPs were also discovered to be taking home nothing at the end of the month because they had over committed their payslips.
The anti-graft body also wants the PSC to come up with guidelines on how they are going to ensure that MPs are paid mileage allowances for the trips they actually make.
It noted that although some of the lawmakers claimed they had travelled to their constituencies every weekend, they had actually been spotted elsewhere at the time.
A peculiar case was that of an MP who had been nominated to attend a function in Australia for an official parliamentary business only to submit a claim that he had travelled to his constituency although at the same time he had also earned perks for the foreign travel.