In January 2016, Britain’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) handed Kenya a dossier in which a UK security printing firm, Smith & Ouzman, was accused of bribing IEBC officials to win the tender to print ballot papers, prior to the March 2013 general elections.

The dossier included data used by the British authorities to prosecute directors of Smith & Ouzman for paying out bribes, code-named chicken, amounting to KSh 59 million to the IEBC officials. IEBC’s former CEO Jame Oswago and three other suspects were arrested and charged in connection with the Chickengate scandal. Mr. Oswago was however later released on bail.

The former Nairobi County Governor Evans Kidero’s non-governmental organization (NGO) also made it to the list of corruption scandals in the year 2016. By the time this was being looked into, unlike Governor Sonko and Governor Waititu’s corruption scandals, Kidero was no longer the sitting governor.

The NGO was put under investigation after KSh 2.7 billion was allegedly found in its bank accounts. The ex-governor was allegedly hard-pressed to explain where the billions came from. Some sources alleged the cash belonged to the Nairobi County government. This matter was still under investigation as of the time of this publication.

This was initially a well-intentioned multi-billion food security project. Similar to the Arwor and Kimwarer Dams projects, this project was later hit by graft allegations that saw a number of senior officials of the National Irrigation Board (NIB) dismissed and the budget for the project significantly slashed.

The NIB came under sharp scrutiny after the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) reportedly discovered that the board had awarded fifteen (15) irregular tenders worth a whooping KSh 953 million.

With the government having scaled-down funding for the project, it eventually collapsed. At the end of it all, the KSh 3.5 billion that was allocated for the Galana project in the 2015/16 budget did not bear any fruits.

The Afya House scandal exploded at the Ministry of Health in October 2016. An internal audit report leaked to the public revealed that over KSh 5 billion had allegedly gone missing and the by senior officials at the ministry were the first suspects.

Investigations were launched into the alleged heist but as usual, no one was jailed or arrested. The then Health CS Cleopa Mailu denied the allegations that billions of taxpayers’ money got lost and the case remained unsolved to date.

Just like the First NYS Scandal, the second National Youth Service (NYS) scandal is also touted as the biggest in the history of the youth empowerment program. It was exposed by one of the local dailies on May 12, 2018.

Initially, KSh 10.5 billion was reported to have been stolen at the NYS, but the figure was later revised to KSh 9 billion after investigations. Over 40 suspects were summoned by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) for questioning as senior officials stepped aside to pave way for investigations. Investigations on this matter are still ongoing as of the time of this publication.

The first NYS graft scandal unfolded in 2015 and a number of high profile state officials, including the then Devolution Cabinet Secretary, who is the now the Governor of Kirinyaga County , Anne Waiguru, were implicated. In this scandal, KSh 791 million was reported to had gone missing from the youth empowerment progremme.

Josephine Kabura was also mentioned adversely in the 2015 NYS scam. The suspects were many, but none was convicted. Courts cited lack of evidence as the reason why the suspects could not be jailed.

The NCPB maize corruption scandal was one of the heated cases in which KSh 1.9 billion was allegedly stolen in a conspiracy between the National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) officials and unscrupulous traders.

Several senior officials, including the NCPB’s CEO were on Monday, May 21, sent on compulsory leaver to pave way for investigations . At the time of writing, this had not been resolved. Read more.

This was a 400 million fake gold scandal and it was not just a thing in Kenya, but also involved the Dubai royal family. The victim of the scandal is Ali Zandi, who is the nephew of Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Emir (ruler) of the UAE.

Mr Zandi was coned 400 million by Kenyan individuals. He said that he would not take anything less than the money he paid for. Reports show that the Emir had personally sought the intervention of President Uhuru Kenyatta and ODM leader Raila Odinga.

The NHIF Corruption Scandal struck the nerve of the masses after it was revealed that the National Health Insurance Fund could have lost more than Ksh10 billion in false medical claims. 

Investigators claimed that the figure had been flagged as fraudulent and was part of about Ksh50 billion paid to NHIF by Treasury as capitation premiums for medical cover for civil servants, Kenya Police Service, National Youth Service, and Kenya Prisons Service since 2013

The detectives claimed to have stumbled on a pile of documents related to premiums from special medical schemes worth Ksh12.7 billion annually which was suspected to have been arrived at following collusion between NHIF officials and hospital administrations, whereby they double-charged the government in medical bills.