Siaya Teachers' Burial and Benevolent Fund (STBBF) has moved to court to recover over Sh7 million allegedly misappropriated by former officials, Secretary Calvin Ochieng has said.
According to Ochieng, the decision to seek legal redress to recover the funds was reached following a forensic audit of the fund accounts which revealed a trail of misappropriation.
Addressing the media in Siaya town, while flanked by the fund officials led by chairman Ambrose Ouma and treasurer Jacinta Ojuka, the secretary said the officials were alarmed by reports from the officials whom they took over from that indicated that an account opened for funds generated by a Hearse had Sh7 million balance while in reality, it was dormant and had no single cent. "The outgoing office had reported during an annual general meeting that preceded elections that kicked them out of the office that the fund was sound financially, but when we went to check the accounts upon taking over, we found that the current account had Sh122, 000, the savings account had Sh4, 680, and the hearing account was dormant and had nothing," he said, while reacting to complaints from a section of the BBF members that they had ignored the plight of retired teachers.
Ochieng said they were optimistic that the fund would be able to recover the money from the ex-officials and pump it back to the members.
