Stealing digitally and its costs to Mwananchi

Stealing digitally and its costs to Mwananchi

By MUSYOKA NGUI

Cybercrime is harming the digital Jubilee government (pun intended). This comes in the wake of National Youth Service mega scandal.

As a consequence, the Auditor General has moved in with a cleaning task. The brief? To audit the Integrated Financial Management Information Systems (IFMIS). The AG hopes to reduce economic crimes in Kenya which is ranked among the most corrupt in the world.

A recent report authored by Transparency International last month indicted Kenya ranked 139^th corrupt country on earth out of the possible 168 countries surveyed.

It is not lost on TI that most of the sleaze stinks to the high heavens from the government procurement departments.

The Nairobi gubernatorial aspirant and former powerful Devolution and Planning Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru acknowledged that a cyber-attack was attempted at the National Youth Service to defraud the State Sh.800 million. It later emerged that IFMIS passwords were allegedly hacked.

Instructively, the 2015 Cyber Security Report reveals that Kenya lost Sh.15 billion via cybercrime.

In 2016, the government has earmarked Sh.13 billion to be spent on fighting cyber warfare.