World Bank Suspends IT Firm and its MD for Bribery
The World Bank Group recently suspended the operation of SoftTech IT Solutions and Services Ltd and its Managing Director, Isah Kantigi, for 50 months over corruption allegations in the National Social Safety Nets Project.
The global financial institution has also announced a 60-month debarment of Isah Kantigi, the managing director of SoftTech.
Following the debarment, Mr Kantigi and SoftTech will be ineligible to participate in projects and operations funded by the bank.
The bank stated that its judgments are part of settlement agreements in which the firm and Mr Kantigi admitted responsibility for the underlying sanctionable practices and agreed to satisfy specific corporate compliance standards as a prerequisite for debarment relief.
The bank said, "The project is designed to provide access to targeted cash transfers to poor and vulnerable households under an expanded national social safety nets system."
The World Bank noted that SoftTech, under Mr Kantigi's management, acted as a "conduit" where he and other individual consultants carried out payments to project officials.
SoftTech received various payments from individual consultants into its bank accounts and then moved the money to the project executives' accounts, thus acting as a financial conduit for these consultants, according to the agreement.
The bank said, "This constitutes corruption under the World Bank’s Anti-Corruption Guidelines."
