Spotlight as Street Families Trust Fund is marred in multimillion graft, staff victimisation claims

The leadership of the Street Families Rehabilitation Trust Fund (SFRTF) is on the spotlight over alleged graft and misappropriation claims of street families’ kitty as well as human resources crisis and internal wrangling.

The alleged brazen financial pilferage claims and human resource crisis that has threatened to paralyse operations at the government entity under the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection comes at a time the vulnerable street populations continue to surge and languish in poverty due to lack of basic social amenities particularly in the major cities, towns and urban centers across the country.

While speaking exclusively to The Informer Media Group from her C-suite office on the 11^th floor of the towering Tourism Fund Building in Nairobi, Trust Fund acting Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Caroline Towett downplayed the matter but acknowledge existence graft allegations which she linked to an unnamed disgruntled official.

However, by the time of going to broadcast, neither the Cabinet Secretary for Labour and Social Protection Dr. Alfred Mutua nor the Principal Secretary for the State Department for Social Protection and Senior Citizen Affairs Joseph Mogusi Motari were immediately reachable for comment.

Speaking to us yesterday, Towett was at pains to explain how millions of shillings were allegedly transferred to individual accounts and later withdrawn.

Instead, she termed the graft and victimisation claims as an “internal problem” linking the allegations she described as “unfounded” to one of the staff members whom she said he was transferred from the head office and hence requires counselling.

“There is no misappropriation or violation of anyone’s right at the institution….”He has approached various institutions including the DCI, EACC and even the National Assembly,” Towett told The Informer Media Group.

Effectively, the government supported entity crafted in 2003 during the late retired President Mwai Kibaki’s tenure to help assist street families through rescue and funding to allow them lead normal dignified lives is now fighting whiff of graft allegations.

According to insiders, monies at the heavily donor-funded SFRTF underprivileged in the society are transferred irregularly to individual accounts.

According to Towett, the official whom she declined to name as accused of being behind a series of whistleblowing claims was transferred to Bungoma and later to Nairobi.

Towett revealed that the board took action to transfer him from the headquarters to save the other employees from resigning due to his toxic behavior but he pleaded not to be transferred to Bungoma and the board agreed to his pleas.

“The person spreading these claims has been having issues and require counselling. He has been issued with a showcase letter from his current station in Nairobi from where he has been fighting to come back at the headquarters,” the CEO said.

“It’s the board that decided he be transferred as per the HR rules of transfer. That’s beyond me as the CEO but I have previously received complaints about his behavior towards others. He has been saying that if he is brought back at the HQ, he’ll be okay but you know there are transfer procedures that are followed before being affected and I do not think it can happen soon,” Towett added.

She also disclosed that some petition letters have been sent to Parliament, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission and to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations petitioning for comprehensive probe into alleged massive graft at the SFRTF.

The funds are allegedly embezzled through fake activities.

In one of the instances, it is alleged that children officers received about Sh1million in their accounts only to be ordered to withdraw and hand Sh900,000 each.

In one of the damning whistleblowing letters to the anti-graft body in our possession, the petitioner highlighted how alleged clandestine looting of funds has been going on for three years now undeterred forcing them to spill the beans.

“I first wrote to the Board of Trustees through the chair, where after summoning me to their meeting, all the board members agreed that with me that whatever I said was true promising to get back after two weeks,” he stated in one of the letters.

The letter received by the EACC in December 2024 reads in part, “the Board of Trustees instead, transferred me without hearing my side. The things I raised, even the other Board Members are complaining especially the audit committee that they have been denied access to files,”

The Trust Fund is not new to corruption allegations.

In March 2018, the Office of the Auditor General reported that a total of Sh230 million allocated for the rehabilitation of street families in the 2015/16 financial year could not be traced.

Further queries arose regarding several pieces of land owned by the Trust Fund, which lacked the necessary ownership documents, indicating potential issues with asset management and financial transparency.