Court ordered treasury officer to refund fraudulent Sh67 million allowances
Faith Jematia Kips
The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) secured a landmark judgment resulting in the recovery of over Sh67 million fraudulently paid as unauthorized allowances to Faith Jematia Kips, an officer at the National Treasury and Planning.
In a judgment delivered on July 15, 2025 by Justice Musyoki of the Anti-Corruption and Economic Crimes Division of the High Court in Nairobi, the court found that Kiptis had illegally and irregularly received public funds disguised as taskforce, extraneous, entertainment, facilitation, and other unspecified allowances.
The court ordered Kiptis to refund Sh67,664,975, with Sh2,443,667.92 forfeited from her Equity Bank account and Sh6,320,419.80 from her KCB Bank account.
It also ordered the payment of interest at court rates until full recovery and costs of the suit to be borne by Kiptis in favor of EACC.
The judgment follows investigations by EACC, which were initiated upon receipt of reports alleging embezzlement of public funds by Kiptis.
Upon conclusion of the investigations, the Commission filed a plaint dated January 18 2023.
EACC investigations established that between January 2020 and June 2022, Kiptis received allowances contrary to government policy.
These included multiple and overlapping committee and taskforce payments, payments made without the requisite approval from the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC), allowances not applicable to her job group and payments not provided for in government procedure manuals and circulars.
The investigations also uncovered the disbursement of undefined and duplicated allowances that were neither recognized nor specified in any formal guidelines.
During the trial, the Commission presented evidence demonstrating that the allowances were unauthorized and in direct violation of SRC circulars—particularly the binding advisory dated December 16, 2015, and a subsequent circular issued on April 22, 2021, both of which expressly rejected the payment of such allowances.
The court reaffirmed that SRC’s advice on public officers’ remuneration is binding under Article 230 of the Constitution and held that Kiptis knowingly participated in the fraudulent scheme, unjustly enriching herself at the expense of the public.
The Court further noted that the National Treasury ought to have awaited the advice of the SRC before effecting any such payments.
The judgment is one of several successful recoveries by the Commission involving funds embezzled from the National Treasury between February 2020 and June 2022. The embezzled amounts had been disguised as extraneous, facilitation, taskforce/committee, and other undefined allowances.
To date, the Commission has recovered a total of Sh174,092,175 in unlawfully and irregularly paid allowances to officials of the National Treasury, through both Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) mechanisms and court processes.