Nipate
Forum => Kenya Discussion => Topic started by: Omollo on January 14, 2017, 10:09:01 PM
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By JAINDI KISERO
More by this Author
If there is an enduring lesson we have learnt from the upsurge of new corruption, it is that the graft game is these days played mainly by manipulating the Integrated Financial Management System, better known to Kenyans by the acronym Ifmis.
I will attempt to describe Ifmis in simple terms for the readers of this column who may not understand computer jargon. I will then enter into a discussion on the undercurrents that explain why the Auditor-General, Mr Edward Ouko, is becoming more and more unpopular with the powers that be.
Firstly, what is Ifmis? Simply put, it is a computer application the government uses to keep track of its financial transactions.
To run your Ifmis system, you have to instal an engine called a database. This is why we acquired Oracle, which underpins our Ifmis system. Put in a different way, our system has two parts: Ifmis and Oracle. We do not own the Oracle database and have no control over it.
We, therefore, only use and access the database under annual licences purchased from Oracle Corporation, the world’s leading vendor of software used by large corporations and institutions.
What then is the basic problem with our Ifmis system and why is it so vulnerable to manipulation by crooks? Our problems stem from the fact that we have not implemented a fully-functioning Ifmis system that can enable us to realise the full potential of the Oracle database. This is very much like buying a six-litre engine and using only one cylinder to power the vehicle.
WORK WELL
Indeed, Ifmis systems, or enterprise resource planning (ERPs), work very well for many large companies and institutions. The reason is simple — these entities have implemented fully-functioning systems.
What has Ifmis to do with the increasing unpopularity of the Auditor-General among the eating chiefs? Everything.
Allow me to explain. Having realised that the Ifmis system had long been captured by corrupt networks, the Auditor-General concluded that the best way to interrogate and get a full view of the government’s financial transactions was to acquire software that could go behind the corrupted Ifmis. He wanted a tool to take him straight to the Oracle database, where he can examine and analyse the raw data.
Consequently, Mr Ouko purchased two software programmes, namely Oracle Audit Vault and Oracle Business Intelligence.
I had to borrow several past issues of the magazine, Profit, which is published by Oracle Corporation, to understand and appreciate the power embedded in the software programmes that the Auditor-General has purchased. They go to a phenomenal level and can trawl very deeply into the database. With these tools, Mr Ouko can interrogate the entire financial audit trail of any government transaction.
I read in a past issue of Profit how these software programmes can allow the Auditor-General to carry out a real-time audit on transactions taking place within Ifmis.
The programmes will allow the Auditor-General to dive as deeply as necessary into the database to collect data and information, which he can use to conduct forensic analyses.
FINANCIAL INFORMATION
They will also allow him to see and recover any financial information and data that may have been deleted by crooked government officials.
Whichever way you look at it, the capability the Auditor-General has acquired is unlikely to make him popular with the well-connected tenderpreneurs who, acting in cahoots with top government officials, have turned Ifmis into am enabling tool for corrupt dealings. If you think that I am making a sweeping statement, go back to the National Youth Service scandal and you will see how the Ifmis regime was so easily manipulated to raid the public purse. Those behind the corrupt networks in control of Ifmis must be shaking in their shoes.
The context I describe is how conspiracy theorists are explaining the recent move by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission to open new investigations into how Oracle Vault and Oracle Business Intelligence were acquired.
Indeed, Mr Ouko has been a man under watch. Just the other day he was publicly rebuked by President Uhuru Kenyatta for daring to extend investigations into the Eurobond saga to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Last week, we read that an official of the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission had secretly obtained an ex parte court order to snoop into Mr Ouko’s personal bank accounts going back to 2012.
It is an open secret that Mr Ouko has been under pressure from the authorities to remove the disclaimer of opinion on the Eurobond transactions in the current report of the Auditor-General. He is expected to table a special audit report on the Eurobond transaction before the Parliamentary Accounts Committee. In corruption-ridden Kenya, auditors are not popular.
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President Uhuru Kenyatta has scoffed at plans by Auditor-General Edward Ouko to investigate activities of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York regarding alleged misuse of the $2 billion Eurobond cash that Kenya raised in 2014.
Mr Ouko had in May told MPs that his office would conduct a forensic audit of the funds outside Kenya after securing appointments with top US and UK financial institutions involved in the transactions.
“When you say that the Eurobond money was stolen and stashed in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, are you telling me that the Kenyan government and United States have colluded?” Mr Kenyatta said Tuesday during an anti-corruption summit at State House.
“Who’s is stupid here? And he (Mr Ouko) says he wants to investigate the Federal Reserve Bank of New York,” he added.
The main opposition party CORD holds that the cash was embezzled but the government maintains the transaction was above board with every cent accounted for.
Probe transaction data
Mr Ouko in May said a team of forensic auditors would visit a number of financial institutions including JP Morgan, Federal Reserve Bank, City Transaction Services New York, JP Securities, Barclays Bank, ICB Standard Bank and Qatar National Bank to scrutinise transaction data.
“We are now in a position to say that we have been given appointments to see JP Morgan and other banks that handled the $2 billion Eurobond transactions,” he told the National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
The team was scheduled to first visit JP Morgan, which was the receiving bank for the Eurobond proceeds, before inspecting the transaction records at the Federal Reserve Bank where the contested cash was transferred to the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) account.
Kenya in June 2014 floated a $2 billion bond in two tranches of $1.5 billion over 10 years and a five-year $500 million bond whose proceeds it deposited in JPMorgan Chase, New York.
Auditor-General Edward Ouko in his 2013/14 fiscal year report said that Sh54 billion of the total proceeds was drawn to settle a syndicated loan that the government took in 2012.
The rest was earmarked for infrastructure development and budgetary support.
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The opposition Coalition of Reforms and Democracy (Cord) says it has taken steps to compel the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to release details on the movement of $999 million Eurobond proceeds deposited in its accounts.
Cord leader Raila Odinga, without disclosing details, said the measures would ensure full disclosure by the US central banker.
“We expect the steps we have embarked on will compel the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to give a full account of where the Eurobond proceeds went after they were deposited in that account,” Mr Odinga said Thursday.
“It is our expectation that the bank will come out clearly and demonstrate that it was not a party to what is clearly an elaborate money laundering scheme by producing bank statements detailing movements of the Eurobond proceeds.”
Cord has previously claimed that the money that was moved from JPMorgan Chase Bank branch in New York to the Federal bank in September 2014 cannot be accounted for. But Treasury said that the money was deposited in a Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) account in the New York Federal bank with the CBK simultaneously crediting a government account in Nairobi with Sh88.5 billion.
Mr Odinga also dismissed explanatory statements provided by the Treasury and the CBK , saying that they are mere spreadsheets and write-ups and not bank statements.
He demanded that CBK produce statements showing receipt of the money in Nairobi.
“The CBK knows that money transfer, receipt and instructions for such transactions are accompanied by Swift Code transfer forms including MT103, MT 202 and MT 502. These forms are missing in all the claims that have been putting out.”
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For once I have to credit to Jacob Juma for bringing t g e Eurobond scandal to the forefront. Apparently Juma was killed a day before he met ambassador Bob Godec to give him dossier on Eurobond theft. Godec has been Cosy with Jubilee government, this might be a good time to investigate how much he paid for ambassador appointment. Remember his history in Tunisia and Arab spring? He could be the cog stalling investigation
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Correction. Shortly after Juma met with Bob & handed him the dossier, Juma was murdered. His involvement with the Arab Spring uprising is questionable.
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By JAINDI KISERO
More by this Author
If there is an enduring lesson we have learnt from the upsurge of new corruption, it is that the graft game is these days played mainly by manipulating the Integrated Financial Management System, better known to Kenyans by the acronym Ifmis.
I will attempt to describe Ifmis in simple terms for the readers of this column who may not understand computer jargon. I will then enter into a discussion on the undercurrents that explain why the Auditor-General, Mr Edward Ouko, is becoming more and more unpopular with the powers that be.
Firstly, what is Ifmis? Simply put, it is a computer application the government uses to keep track of its financial transactions.
To run your Ifmis system, you have to instal an engine called a database. This is why we acquired Oracle, which underpins our Ifmis system. Put in a different way, our system has two parts: Ifmis and Oracle. We do not own the Oracle database and have no control over it.
We, therefore, only use and access the database under annual licences purchased from Oracle Corporation, the world’s leading vendor of software used by large corporations and institutions.
What then is the basic problem with our Ifmis system and why is it so vulnerable to manipulation by crooks? Our problems stem from the fact that we have not implemented a fully-functioning Ifmis system that can enable us to realise the full potential of the Oracle database. This is very much like buying a six-litre engine and using only one cylinder to power the vehicle.
WORK WELL
Indeed, Ifmis systems, or enterprise resource planning (ERPs), work very well for many large companies and institutions. The reason is simple — these entities have implemented fully-functioning systems.
What has Ifmis to do with the increasing unpopularity of the Auditor-General among the eating chiefs? Everything.
Allow me to explain. Having realised that the Ifmis system had long been captured by corrupt networks, the Auditor-General concluded that the best way to interrogate and get a full view of the government’s financial transactions was to acquire software that could go behind the corrupted Ifmis. He wanted a tool to take him straight to the Oracle database, where he can examine and analyse the raw data.
Consequently, Mr Ouko purchased two software programmes, namely Oracle Audit Vault and Oracle Business Intelligence.
I had to borrow several past issues of the magazine, Profit, which is published by Oracle Corporation, to understand and appreciate the power embedded in the software programmes that the Auditor-General has purchased. They go to a phenomenal level and can trawl very deeply into the database. With these tools, Mr Ouko can interrogate the entire financial audit trail of any government transaction.
I read in a past issue of Profit how these software programmes can allow the Auditor-General to carry out a real-time audit on transactions taking place within Ifmis.
The programmes will allow the Auditor-General to dive as deeply as necessary into the database to collect data and information, which he can use to conduct forensic analyses.
FINANCIAL INFORMATION
They will also allow him to see and recover any financial information and data that may have been deleted by crooked government officials.
Whichever way you look at it, the capability the Auditor-General has acquired is unlikely to make him popular with the well-connected tenderpreneurs who, acting in cahoots with top government officials, have turned Ifmis into am enabling tool for corrupt dealings. If you think that I am making a sweeping statement, go back to the National Youth Service scandal and you will see how the Ifmis regime was so easily manipulated to raid the public purse. Those behind the corrupt networks in control of Ifmis must be shaking in their shoes.
The context I describe is how conspiracy theorists are explaining the recent move by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission to open new investigations into how Oracle Vault and Oracle Business Intelligence were acquired.
Indeed, Mr Ouko has been a man under watch. Just the other day he was publicly rebuked by President Uhuru Kenyatta for daring to extend investigations into the Eurobond saga to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Last week, we read that an official of the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission had secretly obtained an ex parte court order to snoop into Mr Ouko’s personal bank accounts going back to 2012.
It is an open secret that Mr Ouko has been under pressure from the authorities to remove the disclaimer of opinion on the Eurobond transactions in the current report of the Auditor-General. He is expected to table a special audit report on the Eurobond transaction before the Parliamentary Accounts Committee. In corruption-ridden Kenya, auditors are not popular.
I normally respect this Jaindi guy. I just wish he could have stayed away from the Audit Vault adventure - it makes him look bad and makes me wonder how much he can be trusted in the other areas that he touches upon in which I may not have a good grasp.
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I normally respect this Jaindi guy. I just wish he could have stayed away from the Audit Vault adventure - it makes him look bad and makes me wonder how much he can be trusted in the other areas that he touches upon in which I may not have a good grasp.
When a database becomes an engine that runs something, you know there are serious problems.
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A very dangerous govt. that needs to be clipped.
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I normally respect this Jaindi guy. I just wish he could have stayed away from the Audit Vault adventure - it makes him look bad and makes me wonder how much he can be trusted in the other areas that he touches upon in which I may not have a good grasp.
When a database becomes an engine that runs something, you know there are serious problems.
Yep. The man is right that corruption is bad news. Bad he hurts his story by trying to make it seem more complicated than it really is. There is nothing particularly secret or even technologically sophisticated about the happenings in NYS and others. And Audit Vault is not even needed to tell you what is on IFMIS. It makes you wonder how much other stuff he makes up in his other stories where he might be considered some sort of expert.
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Gaidi kisero is just a hatchet man doing bidding for tender preneurs..wait until you hear in the next budget the astronomical amount of money that will be used to update IFMIS.....all this is by design, Gaidi kisero is like a Northern star pointing where the next heist will happen and of course he gets his 'prepping' cut upfront. Nyakundi has done a good job exposing these thieves.
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Termie has not done much to explain his reaction to the article.
The technical issues aside, I saw Kisero trying to explain why Ouko is being threatened with a Kangaroo Process.
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Termie has not done much to explain his reaction to the article.
The technical issues aside, I saw Kisero trying to explain why Ouko is being threatened with a Kangaroo Process.
I got sidetracked by his ramblings on Audit Vault. Things like that can drown out a real message like the Kangaroo process he talks about. Especially since he has made it seem as if the EACC is after Ouko because they are scared of the Audit Vault. You would need Audit Vault if something somehow got changed in the database while bypassing IFMIS which has not been an issue as far I can tell. It's a useful tool, but its capabilities are not the reason he is being haunted by EACC. Ouko is not being harassed so much because he knows about corruption but that recently he seems hell bent on investigating it - that's it. They have no issues with stuff being known. In Kenya's case, what needs to be known is already in the public domain and was easily found just by looking at the transaction trail.
I know you tend to assume that if one points out a shortcoming or another, that they are speaking for one side or another. In this case, I am actually pro-Kisero, so I hate to see him talking "with authority" about things he obviously knows nothing about. It weakens his credibility and can make one wonder if he should be taken seriously in other areas where he is a genuine authority.
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Termie has not done much to explain his reaction to the article.
The technical issues aside, I saw Kisero trying to explain why Ouko is being threatened with a Kangaroo Process.
Here, the technical issues cannot be put aside, because the failure or inability to understand them has led your man to an incorrect conclusion on why Ouko is "being threatened":
They will also allow him to see and recover any financial information and data that may have been deleted by crooked government officials ... Those behind the corrupt networks in control of Ifmis must be shaking in their shoes.
In the lengthy "technical preliminaries", he probably thought he was toboaring as well as enlightening the ignorant. (He explicitly states the latter.) I have no doubt that instead he has misinformed many people, who will not even be aware of it (because he is an "expert"). It's an incredibly bad piece of writing, and I astonished that you brought it here.
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In Kenya you are hired not to do your job. Performance died the day Kibaki left office, although I think he could have done more to strenghten institutions. Did you know Kibaki was sued and actually attended a court hearing?
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I concur. I was nudging Termie to complete what he had started. I knew he would address the technical issues which well, forms the gist of the article. I know Jaindi and must say I felt a bit of shame really. :)
My position remains that Ouko is being targeted for daring to poke his nose in the Eurobond. That is the stuff of International Arrest warrants and freezing of stashed wealth etc. The thieves cannot take chances.
Here, the technical issues cannot be put aside, because the failure or inability to understand them has led your man to an incorrect conclusion on why Ouko is "being threatened":
In the lengthy "technical preliminaries", he probably thought he was toboaring as well as enlightening the ignorant. (He explicitly states the latter.) I have no doubt that instead he has misinformed many people, who will not even be aware of it (because he is an "expert"). It's an incredibly bad piece of writing, and I astonished that you brought it here.
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His foray into the technology aspect is so bad... I don't even know how to address it. You have to peel off layers of ignorance about ignorance before you just give up.
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Eurobond money never made it to kenya. Time to petition Trump administration regarding this money. We also need audit on government payment to Podesta family. Podesta group will be the key to unraveling Eurobond money.
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Eurobond money never made it to kenya. Time to petition Trump administration regarding this money. We also need audit on government payment to Podesta family. Podesta group will be the key to unraveling Eurobond money.
With Trump you need no intermediary. Just tweet to him and you could get a live response.