Photo|FILE Clinix Healthcare Ltd Chief Executive officer Toddy Madahana (left) and chairman Jayesh Saini before the Parliamentary Committee investigating the NHIF scandal on May 15, 2012. 


          Anti-corruption campaigners have expressed fears that theft of public money may escalate as the country gears up for elections.
The raging corruption scandals in parastatals such as the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) and National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) have rekindled fears that politicians in power may start looting public coffers ahead of the General Election.
Researchers say politicians spent over Sh4.8 billion in the 2007 campaigns, a quarter of which is believed to have come from government coffers.
The Centre for Democracy and Governance estimates that over Sh1 billion was raised through pyramid schemes. CDG researchers say they found evidence that some of the  money found its way to campaign kitties.

“For those incumbent in public office, additional income came from unpaid use of the provincial administration machinery, coercion to extort money from private businesses, use of state media and state corporation advertisements to propagate partisan information, use of government premises for party meetings, involving senior public officers in presidential campaign planning, use of government resources to produce material for campaigns and fuelling private vehicles using funds from government.
“These latter activities are estimated to have amounted to Sh500 million,” the researchers said of the 2007 elections.
According to an expenditure monitoring and income tracking survey conducted by the NGO, about Sh1 billion may have been spent in the use of state resources such as state media, vehicles and the Government Printer.
To unduly pressure 

Former Cabinent minister Mukhisa Kituyi says he sees ominous signs of theft of public money. Dr Kituyi says he was once approached by a certain individual when he was in Cabinet in 2007 and asked to unduly pressure French cement maker Lafarge out of East African Portland Cement. (READ: State must come clean on its pressure on Lafarge)   
Lafarge holds a large stake in Portland, a state corporation, and the threat was supposed to “make them talk” – couched language for issuing a bribe in order to be left alone.
Dr Kituyi is now warning that the same forces are on the loose with the same intentions and, again, in an election year.
“I feel a sense of déjà vu. The latest posturing comes at a time when questionable deals at NHIF, bulk petroleum importation, the possible sale of New KCC are raising the spectre of raiding public coffers for campaign funds,” Dr Kituyi says. “All prefects and whistle blowers should now get on heightened alert.”
Anti-corruption crusader Mwalimu Mati says there is a connection between scandals and an election year. “There is no doubt. All those incidents are related because of politics based on vote buying.
“The incumbent want to buy their way back into power. During election years, we have discovered that accounts of government go into shambles. There’s definitely a connection,” Mr Mati said.
“If Kenyans were to vote with their heads and not their stomachs, it would be different. If you sell your vote, you sell your government. If we had the moral fibre, it would be different.
“The major spending has got to be recouped somehow. Political party financing may make a difference. It’s not an all-hope-gone situation but we are trying to change a political culture that has gained root over the last 50 years,” Mr Mati told the Sunday Nation.
Parliament is trying to find out what happened at NHIF as the public health insurer rolled out a multi-billion-shilling scheme covering civil servants but which is embroiled in controversy.
The claims of fraud at NHIF came hot on the heels of a scandal at the NSSF where the state pension fund is paying for Kanu-era contracts. 
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