From Asylheim in Brandenburg to the NYS Scandal

Ms Ann Wambere Ngirita, the woman being investigated for receiving Sh 59.8 million from the National Youth Service (NYS) for supplying air, was in 2014 living in Germany as an asylum seeker “escaping from female genital mutilation and ready for a German future”.

In a January 2014 interview with MOZ, she said she was scared of returning to Kenya for fear of being forced to undergo FGM.

According to the interview, Ngirita moved to Germany in 2011 as an au pair. She had consciously escaped to Germany to save herself from the traumatizing practise. After her au pair year, she sought asylum and at the time of the interview had spent a whole year in the refugee home in Treskow in a small room she shared with her boyfriend at the time. The currently 30 year old, claimed during the interview to be 24 years old.

She told MOZ that she had cut ties with her family in Kenya and was starting a new life in Germany. As her asylum application was being reviewed, she had enrolled for a German language course and was hoping to pursue a career in Hotel management.

However on Tuesday while being questioned about the NYS scandal and her involvement, claimed to have travelled to Germany “for an academic course”. In her statement she said she worked with a company whose name she could not recall and earned €1,200 (Sh141,546) a month.

From the information she recorded with police, she sat her Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education examination in 2008. Then in 2010, she opened a shop which closed down the same year. In 2015, she registered two companies — Annwaw and Ann Wambere Wanjiku Investments — that are being investigated over their role in the scam.

According to neighbours in Naivasha who spoke to the media, Ngirita moved to Germany after two of her sisters got married to German citizens and relocated. She joined them in Germany and shortly after, the family fortunes changed.

Whether her asylum application was approved or when or under which circumstances she returned to Kenya remained unclear.