Kenya has FIFA support on Football Kenya Federation – PS Okudo

Principal Secretary for Sports Joe Okudo has said the Government has secured FIFA’s backing in its bid to inspect the Football Kenya Federation.

Okudo was appearing before the National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee Tuesday to shed light on how the KSh244million given to FKF for the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations in Egypt was spent.

The KSh244 million may, however, turn out to be just a tip of the rhinoceros’ horn given a trove of evidence of plunder at FKF, which a whistle-blower is said to have submitted to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission and the Director of Public Prosecution.

While the Sports Ministry is pursuing the public money, the whistle-blower and journalist Milton Nyakundi is pushing for a multi-agency investigation to unravel what he says are “fictititious financial transactions between accounts of FKF and its officials.”

“We have engaged and secured the backing of the International Federation of Association Football in our investigations. Federations have been hiding behind the threat of ban for government interference in sports federations,” PS Okudo told the PAC.

“We wrote to the DCI on October 15, 2019 and there has been back and forth because the FKF rushed to court to stop the probe. However, the court two weeks ago allowed the DCI to move into FKF saying the federation has a case to answer.”

The revelation comes the same day FIFA officials, from the governance unit, landed in Kenya even as FKF remained cagey on their identities amid a rising crescendo of financial impropriety at Kandanda House.

In the 2019/20 audit report on the national government, the Auditor General (an independent office established under Article 229 of the Constitution of Kenya) flagged KSh11 million paid to FKF President Nick Mwendwa as refunds between 25^th April and 29^th November 2019 without proper documentation. The same report noted that the FKF’s payment documents in respect of KSh57, 006, 844 paid as “allowances and bonuses to Harambee Stars players and technical bench who travelled for the Africa Cup of nations camps in various countries were not supported by approved rates”.

“Further, bank statements and cashbooks were not availed for audit review to confirm amounts transferred to the bank for payments,” Auditor General Nancy Gathungu said in the report.

FKF moved to the High Court on 1^st October 2020 seeking to stop the DCI from investigating them but High Court Judge James Makau dismissed Mwendwa’s case saying it lacked merit, was premature and speculative.

Nyakundi had petitioned the BFIU and the EACC to investigate fictitious transactions at Kandanda House, including direct transfer of funds from the federation’s to Mwendwa’s personal accounts.

PHOTO/COURTESY