Millions in Education Money Stolen in Kenya

Cathy Majtenyi | Nairobi

Photo: AFP

Children play in the recreation yard of Ayany Primary school in Nairobi's sprawling Kibera slum in this 04 April 2006 photo.

This is Part 4 of a 12-part series:  Education in Africa
Continue to Parts: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7/ 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 /12

Kenya’s education sector continues to suffer fallout from the theft of millions of dollars two years ago from a government program that, among other things, funds the country’s Free Primary Education initiative.  Overcrowded classrooms and fragmented programs are some of the results of the theft, cases of which are still in court. 

The Kenya Education Support Sector Program was launched with much fanfare in 2005.  The $5.8 billion program promised to make basic education available to everyone, improve the quality of that education, increase opportunities for post-secondary education, and train education managers.

The World Bank, Britain’s Department for International Development, or DFID, the Canadian International Development Agency, and the U.N.’s children’s agency threw their support behind the program.  DFID, for instance, kicked in more than $83 million.

But trouble started brewing towards the end of 2009 with rumors of massive fraud in the Ministry of Education and the entire school system.  By early 2010, the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission had compiled a list of some 40 education officials suspected of theft, with a handful already appearing in court.

Nicholas Simani, public relations officer at the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission, says investigations and court cases are still going on today. 

"Some of the witnesses are not turning up; some of the witnesses have changed their mind," he said. "We do not know whether they have been coerced into changing their mind or they have given up.  Some of the witnesses have just disappeared.  The more we talk about certain cases in specifics, we are finding that the documentations are disappearing, which means the individuals who are involved are either destroying them or not making them not be available to us."

Forensic audit 

Last June, the Ministry of Finance released the results of its forensic audit.  It says that a total of $54.9 million had been misappropriated.  About half of that was money meant to build schools in disadvantaged areas of the country such as arid/semi-arid lands and urban slums.

As details of the massive fraud emerged, all of the donors pulled out.  A statement from the British High Commission in early 2010 announced the end of DFID’s funding for the Kenya Education Support Sector Program.  The statement said DFID would allocate $27.4 million in its 2010-2011 budget for education in Kenya but would disperse the money independent of any government systems.

And that further erodes the quality of education, says Sara Ruto, regional manager of Uwezo East Africa, a program to improve literacy and math skills among children in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. She says the whole point of the Kenya Education Support Sector Program was to come up with a holistic, unified vision and plans for the entire Kenyan education system.

"We are going back to the former pattern of fragmented funding, that somebody decides on a project of choice to them.  So you have people doing small things here and there and maybe they are not even talking to each other.  Non-state actors have often gone for what is visible.  You can easily account for a building [more] than accounting for soft issues like training," said Sara Ruto. 

Reimbursing donors

The Kenyan government has reimbursed donors for the fraud using taxpayers’ money, a move that riles Mwalimu Mati, head of the government watchdog Mars Group Kenya.

He recalls the government’s promise several years ago to hire primary school teachers in order to reduce classroom sizes - which in some cases are up to 100 students per classroom - and the subsequent teachers’ strike when this was not done.

"So when they went on strike, they were asking for the hiring of about 20,000 new teachers and the conversion of some of the teachers who were on contract to permanent terms," said Mati. "The total package for that bill was going to be just over four billion shillings ($47.7 million).  I think if we are refunding two-and-a-half billion shillings [$29.8 million], we are basically making it very difficult for the government to be able to hire these new teachers."

Mati says the Finance Ministry is not saying anything about recovering the money from those prosecuted for the crimes.  He says that, by using public coffers to reimburse donors, the government, in his words, “makes the taxpayer liable to pay for stolen funds."

Students, first victims of corruption

Sources interviewed by VOA listed many other impacts of the corruption. The Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission’s Simani says corruption harms students the most.

"Two hundred thousand kids cannot make it to Form One, to secondary [school]," said Simani. "What is going to happen to 200,000 children?  They are just going to be running around?  There is no other system to channel them in.  There is need to look at the entire education system.  Because of corruption, this has limited the choices for these 200,000 people to enter into."

Uwezo East Africa’s Ruto calls it a "vicious cycle," where teachers sometimes do not show up for class because they are demotivated by the corruption of their headmasters. 

Obama Promotes Plan to Fight Rising Fuel Prices

Kent Klein | White House

Photo: AP

President Barack Obama walks to board Air Force One en route to Miami, at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, February 23, 2012.

As Americans worry about rising gasoline prices, President Barack Obama is defending his energy policy. The president went on the road Thursday to answer Republican election-year criticism that he is not doing enough to solve the problem.

Higher prices at the gasoline pump are making Americans nervous, and White House officials are concerned about the possible effects fuel prices might have on President Obama’s reelection campaign.

The president visited the University of Miami in Florida on Thursday to discuss the problem and his administration’s long-term plan to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

Obama told students that the price increases are mostly a result of events in other parts of the world.

“Oil is bought and sold in a world market.  And just like last year, the single biggest thing that is causing the price of oil to spike right now is instability in the Middle East, this time around Iran,” Obama said.

Jeff Mower, editor-in-chief of the New York-based Pratts Oilgram Price Report, agrees that the rise in U.S. gasoline prices is due largely to factors beyond America’s shores.

“Tensions surrounding Iran right now, problems over in Sudan, which is shutting crude production - all of this has helped to drive up the price of Brent crude and also gasoline prices,” Mower said.

Mower also says that lower profit margins have led oil companies to close some refineries outside of the United States, which is also driving up prices.

Opposition Republicans say that Obama is not doing enough to encourage domestic oil production.  At Wednesday’s Republican contender presidential debate, Newt Gingrich said increased drilling would lead to dramatically lower gasoline prices.

“If we would open up federal land and open up offshore, you would have $16-18 trillion - not billion-trillion - in royalties to the federal government in the next generation - an enormous flow, which would drive down prices to $2.50 a gallon, would help [U.S. federal] balance the budget and would create millions of jobs,”  Gingrich said.

Republicans have also criticized the president for postponing a decision on approving the Keystone Pipeline project, which would carry oil from Canada to U.S. refineries.

In Miami on Thursday, Obama ridiculed Republican criticism.  He said his administration has approved an unprecedented amount of domestic oil and gas production.  But, he said, more drilling alone would not solve the problem.

“It means that anybody who tells you that we can drill our way out of this problem does not know what they are talking about or just is not telling you the truth,” Obama said

The president again called for support for his comprehensive strategy to reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil.

“If we are going to avoid being at the mercy of these world events, we have got to have a sustained, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source of American energy.  Yes, oil and gas - but also wind and solar and nuclear and biofuels and more," he said.

Gasoline prices in the United States have reached an average of more than 92 cents per liter.  More than half of the Americans surveyed in a new public opinion poll say that price could exceed $1.32 this year.

Analysts say Florida, the nation's fourth-most populous state, will be a key battle ground in November's presidential election.  After his speech in Miami, Mr. Obama held several campaign fundraising events in Florida.

After Vote, Putin Promises to Stand Up to West

Jim Brooke | Moscow

Photo: AP

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin speaks during a massive rally in his support at Luzhniki stadium in Moscow, February. 23, 2012.

Under Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Russia has found common ground with Washington - on shipping war supplies to Afghanistan, halting the sale of anti-aircraft missiles to Iran and joining the World Trade Organization.

With Prime Minister Vladimir Putin leading all polls prior to Sunday’s presidential vote, though, the question of how Russia’s foreign policy would change under his return to the presidency is coming into focus.

In a 7,500-word foreign policy essay released Monday, the prime minister is promising a Russia with sharper elbows that vigorously pushes back against the West and forces it to take Moscow’s views into account.

Writing that "Russia is only treated with respect when it is strong and stands firm on its own two feet," he says "the only way to ensure global security is by doing it together with Russia, not by trying to ‘demote’ it, weaken it geopolitically, or undermine its defensive potential."

If Putin wins the presidential election on Sunday, he would rule Russia, the world’s largest country, through 2018.

Viktor Kremenyuk, a deputy director of the Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies, predicts that Kremlin cooperation with the West would be on a case by case basis.

"If you want [the Kremlin] to cooperate, you should think about something, about carrots and sticks, you know, some system of encouragement, which so far we didn't see at all," he says, explaining that some Russian have lingering doubts about dealing with the West.

"Russians still are very suspicious," he says. "They don't believe that the West is really taking Russia seriously and is ready to cooperate with Russia on an equal basis."

On Washington and the Middle East

Talking tough to Washington in his essay, Putin complains of "regular U.S. attempts to engage in ‘political engineering,’ including in regions that are traditionally important to us and during Russian elections."

As a young KGB agent in the early 1980s, Putin’s job was to monitor foreigners and dissidents in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). Thirty years later, he is attacking foreign funded non-governmental groups, writing that "pseudo-NGOs and other agencies that try to destabilize other countries with outside support are unacceptable."

He is also promising to fight Washington’s anti-Iranian missile defense plan, saying it would destabilize the nuclear-missile balance between Russia and the United States. He interprets the Arab Spring as a Western bid for influence and markets, while Libya, he says, is the West’s gain and Russia’s loss.

On Syria, he promises to hold the line.

Arguing against possession of nuclear weapons by two of Russia’s southern neighbors, Iran and North Korea, he simultaneously warns the West against exerting pressure on North Korea’s new leader, Kim Jong-un, and says an attack on Iran’s nuclear program would be "truly catastrophic."

Explaining that some foreign leaders seek nuclear weapons to protect themselves from Western intervention, he writes of their reasoning: "If I have an A-bomb in my pocket, nobody will touch me because it’s more trouble than it’s worth."

Strong ties with Beijing

Putin’s only warm words are for China.

Stressing the political and diplomatic cooperation between Moscow and Beijing, he seems to be reassuring voters that the nation’s eastern back is covered. He praises China’s economic expansion, saying it gives Russia "a chance to catch the Chinese wind in the sails of our economy."

According to Alexander Lukin, director of East Asian Studies at Moscow State University, Russia wants to expand trade and investment with China.

"As Mr. Putin said, we need to use Chinese prosperity and growth for our own sake, for our own purposes," he says. "Because ... that China is growing is a fact, [and] one cannot change it. So you have to take it as reality."

But from the United Nations to NATO to the Arab League, it looks as if the world can increasingly expect a Russia that pushes back.

Moody's: Greek Debt Default Risk 'Remains High'

The Moody's credit rating company says the risk of Greece defaulting on its loans "remains high," even after European leaders approved a new financial rescue for the country.

The financial services firm Monday called the $172 billion Greek rescue package, the country's second in two years, "an important step forward."  But Moody's said Greece's debt will "remain large" for years, even as large private creditors have agreed to eliminate more than half the debt the country owes them, a $142 billion reduction.

Moody's said the Athens government is unlikely to be able to secure new loans on its own in world financial markets when the bailout money runs out in the next few years.

Moody's bleak assessment came as Germany's parliament easily approved the bailout.  The move came as surveys in the country showed that Germans overwhelmingly oppose further assistance for Greece.  Germany's largest newspaper, Bild, ran a front-page headline saying "Stop!" and urged lawmakers to vote against the Greek bailout.

But German Chancellor Angela Merkel told lawmakers that rejecting it could cause unforeseen problems for Europe and the global economy.

"Nobody can say what the consequence of a denial of a second bail-out program for Greece will have for the other countries of the program like Portugal and Ireland, maybe even Spain and Italy, eventually to the euro zone as a whole and then the entire world," she said. 

On Sunday, finance ministers from the world's 20 leading economies said the European Union must commit more money to a fund aimed at containing the eurozone debt crisis before other nations will provide additional resources to the International Monetary Fund.  European governments have already established a $672 billion rescue fund for future financial emergencies that is set to take effect in July, but G20 countries are pressing Europe to combine that with money remaining in a temporary fund to create a $1 trillion account.

After a two-day meeting in Mexico City, the G20 issued a statement saying that while recent signs point to a "modest global recovery," high risks remain.

IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said none of the G20 countries argued with the necessity of expanding the IMF financial firewall.  The Washington-based agency is seeking a $500 billion fund to go along with a "properly sized" commitment from Europe. "They all expect that the eurozone, the euro area rather, will strengthen, consolidate, reinforce its firewall and make sure that it is both adequate and credible before they look at increasing the firepower of the (IMF) fund," she said. 

European countries have pledged nearly $200 billion to the IMF, but so far other countries have been reluctant to contribute more money unless Europe bolsters its own rescue fund.  The 17 countries that use the euro currency are set to discuss the "strength" of their bailout resources next month.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said G20 ministers are encouraged about the progress Europe has made in the past few months, but that rescue funds are not the only solution to the crisis. "A durable solution requires both a sustained period of economic reform and a substantial financial firewall to support those reforms.  European policy makers recognize the magnitude of the challenges ahead and they will be reviewing additional steps in the weeks ahead," he said. 

Following the G20 meeting, European economic minister Olli Rehn praised what he called a "clear roadmap" and said he was confident of a positive conclusion.

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