Both the public and private sectors in Kenyaa are victims of fraud and/or corruption. Unfortunately, fraud in the procurement function is one of the most difficult to identify, making it difficult to catch the perpetrators until it’s too late.
The multi-billion-shilling textbook business has been hit by a major racket after the government decided it would procure books directly from publishers and supply schools, with the aim of making savings from discounts on account of bulk purchases.
The effect
The Education ministry, which is managing the project, has saturated schools with excess books in a scheme that appears aimed at profiteering suppliers.
Investigations reveal that some schools have been supplied with nearly double the number of textbooks they need, in virtually all subjects.
The textbook supply policy replaced an equally corruption-prone system where schools bought books from booksellers and publishers based on recommendations of the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD),contained in what was known as the Orange Book.
The government had decided to procure books directly from publishers and supply schools, with the aim of making savings from discounts on account of bulk purchases.
The new system was in a bid to save taxpayers large sums of money.
The cost of textbooks for secondary schools would drop from Sh21 billion to Sh7.5 billion a year, it said.
However, the project seems to have opened a route for corruption and deal-making. Books are bought in unnecessarily large quantities to allow for profiteering and kickbacks, at the expense of the taxpayer.
According to a Nation survey, a number of schools have an oversupply of textbooks and are even struggling to store them.
One school received 4,135 books instead of the 2,781 it needed to give each student a copy of all the recommended books.