How IDP problem turned into a gravy train for many

By JOHN OYWA

The Government could be spending millions of taxpayers’ money to feed and house impostors who have turned camps for internally displaced persons into their gravy train, The Standard can reveal.

The impostors have integrated with genuine IDPs and some are even their representatives.

In what appears to be a well-planned and elaborate act of deceit spanning three years, and backed by corrupt Government officials, the individuals, many of whom were never affected by the 2007-2008 post election violence, have turned the IDP resettlement programme into an endless circus to get free land, money and other benefits from the Government, sympathetic individuals and donors.

Questions are being raised why no proper audit to determine who is a genuine IDP has ever been conducted, three years after the traumatic events sparked by a disputed presidential election saw over 1000 people killed, and thousands more maimed, raped, displaced or dispossessed of property.

As the Government tries to resettle the IDPs, The Standard has reliably learnt from multiple sources that the saga could as well be one of the country’s biggest scandals in recent times.

By the end of the current financial year, the Government is expected to have spent over Sh9.8 billion on the IDP programme, three years after the post-election violence, according to Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta.

"The Government has used its own tax resources, borrowed money and grants in its efforts to ensure that the IDPs are resettled," Uhuru said in a statement last week.

But inside the tattered tents that dot parts of the country live the kings of deceit and outright extortionists who are secretly fanning the resettlement disputes to continue milking the cash cow.

Senior provincial administrators admit that majority of the genuine IDPs had returned to their homes and that more than half of those still languishing in the camps were ‘fake’.

The Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission director, PLO Lumumba recently confirmed he was investigating the Ministry of Special Programmes over the IDP issue. A source at the Commission said they were targeting the misuse of millions of shillings and the registration of fake IDPs.

The investigations come in the wake of an alleged loss of Sh200 million in the IDP resettlement rip-off. At the centre of the scam are State and non-Governmental organization (NGO) officials who see the plight of genuine IDPs as their lifeline.

"The State would be shocked if a fresh audit was to be undertaken at the camps. Most of these people holding demonstrations and threatening to storm State House are not genuine. Many have their own homes and even businesses," said a District officer who asked not to be quoted because of the nature of his work.

He added: "There are also those who were jobless and landless before the post-election violence. They have now found a source of livelihood."

A relief worker in Eldoret, Martin Kipyego, said the registration of IDPs was riddled with corruption with opportunists getting into the camps without proof they had been rendered landless by the clashes.

"Some of these people even used fake national identity cards to get registration, yet they never lost a single property during the skirmishes," he said. A former IDP in Naivasha who is now living in Nairobi’s Kayole estate, Mr Joseph Karanja told The Standard he knew of hawkers who were comfortably surviving as IDPs, even though they had families in Kiambu, Nyeri and Kirinyanga.

"I know them. We used to do business in Kisumu. We fled the violence and had been paid the Sh35,000 to resettle. They took the money but continue hopping from camp to camp," said Karanja.

Karanja, a former hawker in Kisumu said he used to know of one IDP in Nakuru who owned two matatus. In Eldoret, sources told The Standard of fake IDPs who have lucrative tenders with shops where they sell food donated to them at the camps (see separate story).

"For the one year I lived at the camp in Nakuru, a realised the IDP issue is a cash cow. Some of the Government officials even receive bribes to register the so-called displaced people. It is a dirty game," he added.

Indications that many Kenyans were suspicious of the IDP project came to the fore late last year, when the first family said they would forgo the traditional New Year party at State House, and instead use the money allocated for it to buy food for the IDPs in camps. Angry Kenyans jammed social Internet networks to criticise the move by President Kibaki and First lady, Lucy for using the money on the IDPs, many of whom they claimed were impostors. Queried a blogger: "It is unbelievable that someone who was once a landlord in an urban slum could lose all their property and end up in a camp. Did they have land at their rural homes?"

Another asked: "Are these genuine or fake IDP’s? The country is now at peace and people should have gone back to their homes to reconstruct their lives. Seemingly there are some people who are taking the advantage of the confusion to benefit from goodies who were either IDP before PEV or by convenience. A forensic audit of IDPs is needed lest we have perennial impostors."

Another blogger said: "The duplicity of fake IDPs is unbelievable. Even those who were resettled and had houses built for them in Kuresoi as recently as August this year, would wait until nightfall to steal the iron sheets off their own roofs, and vandalise their own doors and windows so that they could return to the free-living in the camps."

One writer explained: "There are so many fake IDPS in the camps. My buddy went back to Molo and one of his former school mates told him that he wished the post-election violence can happen often because he freely got two acres of land as a result."

Former Special Programmes Minister Naomi Shaban said fake IDPs have been a major stumbling block towards resettlement efforts. She blamed the provincial administration, and said she had already alerted Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission to investigate several cases.

The IDPs have staged demonstrations to protest alleged failure to resettle them. They have threatened to march to State House next week to meet President Kibaki.

A senior official at the Special Programmes ministry who declined to identify himself told The Standard on phone: "We are dealing with the matter. Claims of fake IDPs have been there for a long time, but we are sorting it out. It is not as bad as people think."

However, the Kenya Red Cross Society, which initially assisted in resettling the displaced, did not wish to be dragged into the debate.

The organisation’s communications officer, Titus Mungou said: "We handed over the management of the camps to the Government in 2008. The records may have changed because of the frequent movement of the IDPs, but it is no longer in our docket."