Records of some of the entities believed to have been fraudulently paid Sh9 billion from the National Youth Service are incomplete or missing from the company registry.
A search in the official database of the registrar of companies carried out at 4pm yesterday showed that Ameratrade Enterprises, Ngiwako Enterprises, and Ersatz Enterprises returned a “no result”.
“When a search of a company at the official register done manually returns a “no result”, it means as far as the companies’ registry is concerned, those companies do not exist,” an official at the registrar’s office, aware of the goings on, but who is not authorised to speak to the media, said.
In a few cases, efforts by the Nation to unmask the owners of the entities yielded identities of directors whose names are not familiar to the public, but who are possibly fronts for people holding influential public offices.
Out of a sample of 10 companies, three were properly registered as companies with two directors each, two were registered as business names with one owner each, while three could not be traced at all at the company registry. About 40 companies are said to be involved in the NYS fraud and are under investigation.
The government and its agencies are supposed to do business only with formally registered companies, which must also be registered as taxpayers and have a PIN certificate as well as a VAT certificate. In the case of women, youth and the disabled, they must have an additional certificate, called AGPO (Access to Government Opportunities). In addition, all must have a tax compliance certificate.