Shame of Kenya chiefs and village heads stalking beneficiaries of welfare funds

Tulia village, Kitui west constituency we find this children in this lonely homestead. [PHOTO.FIDELIS KABUNYI]

KITUI COUNTY: On an ordinary day in Mithini Location of Kitui County, the destitute and the aged follow shadows and shades to escape the scorching mid-day sun.

The clatter of birds humming about, the occasional swirl of whirlwinds and beguiling view of Mutonguni Hills adds cheer to their sordid tales; tales which begin and end in their little huts.

Each day lived is a blessing as the elements – and now Government administrators – pursue them. In Shakespeare’s words, their way of life is falling into the sere, the yellow leaf. They now only seek a decent end to their life, a contrast to their tumultuous beginnings.

As we walk into Mzee Musya Muinde’s homestead a few kilometres from Tulia town, we are almost certain to find him home. He has nowhere to go. Age and destitution have caught up with him and confined him to his desolate homestead.

We find him helping his wife to peel off a basketful of pigeon peas, the only basket his small farm produced last week. Muinde is among the chosen few of senior citizens “enjoying” the cash transfers under the Jubilee Government’s social protection plan.

There are about 454,000 of his compatriots countryside, each receiving Sh2,000 a month from the State since February this year. Muinde has just received his five-month cumulative cash of Sh10,000. But he is a bitter old man.

“Immediately I collected the amount, I was accosted by the headman as I left the venue. He demanded some share so that it can go and “follow” the other tranche. He said munene wanted it,” Muinde recalls.

In the old man’s slang, “follow” is the bribe offered to facilitate Government officials to release the funds. “Munene” literary translating to the big man, is the title given to the area chief.

In his mind, the argument made sense since the share, which ideally ought to be monthly, had delayed for months.

Muinde says he did not complain because over the five months, he had been “prepared” to part with some amount to facilitate the next tranche. He says alongside other villagers entitled to the amount, he had been made to believe the process is complicated, and there was a pending court case as well.

Post office

A kilometre away, we check into Mwende Mutemi’s homestead. There are semi-permanent structures, empty cow sheds and clattered beddings. Still, she has managed to secure the entrance to her compound with an improvised gate. But there is nothing to protect as she has already been robbed. Muinde has a similar story.

“No sooner had I taken my share at the post office than I was accosted behind the shops by two headmen. They said everybody was giving out a share to ‘release’ a further Sh6,000 for the next three months,” she tells us.

Further, Mwende says she was threatened that failure to release the share may lead to her being struck off the cash transfer register. She gave Sh2000 to be handed over to the “big man”, Sh500 to one of the headmen and Sh50 to the other headman who was to do the actual delivery.

With a tinge of pride, Mwende wryly adds: “They said everybody else was giving out Sh3,000 but I refused. I told them Sh3,000 out of Sh10,000 was just too much, that it was as good as asking for the whole amount. I tried to be cleverer than them.”

The matter was settled when she agreed to be owed Sh500 payable in the next tranche. The mother of eight says the Sh7,450 left on her is not enough to cater for her needs until the next batch. Besides, she now lives in anxiety of not knowing whether the next amount will come because of her “debt”.

We asked her whether she can identify the headmen who fleeced her and she twists her mouth to the direction of one of the headmen: “Of course... it was in broad daylight. I know them. They know me and I am known of them.”

A few kilometres from Mwende’s homestead through the ridges of Tulia is Mama Kavila Kavili’s homestead. Like the homesteads of Mwende and Muinde, there’s nothing to write home about hers, the only consolation being the grandeur and expanse of her immediate neighbour’s home.

The neighbour’s plastic water tank erected on a stone-walled platform superimposes over her grass-thatch hut whose roof recently collapsed on catching fire. The only machine in her compound is a traditional sisal-press, “ngali” in Kikamba, which comprises of two blades stuck onto a wooden stump. She spends the day running sisal through the blades to make fibre which she uses to make ropes for sale. Partially deaf from age, we found that she had just picked an axe and disappeared into the bushes to fetch wood for the night. Her eldest son, Mulyungi, was however there to testify to the theft.

“On that day, my pleas to take her to the post office to fetch the money fell on deaf ears. I spent the whole day here pressing sisal. When she came back, she told me that after she got the money, she told him she had lost Sh3000 to the headmen who accompanied her,” he says.

But it is the choice of her words which adds little cheer to an otherwise sad story. He tells us that his mother was “robbed off” Sh3000 ostensibly to “invite” other money. The entire matter spells out one thing - sleaze.

Again, the explanation given was that the chief needed the amount to “pursue” the next tranche. We walked across the ridge to Ndaa Mwisyo’s home, yet another beneficiary. We were ushered in by malnourished dogs whose leader let out one faint bark before wagging his tail to welcome us home.

We found his desolate little hut locked up. Mulyungi told us Mr Mwisyo had been fleeced Sh3000 as well. We passed through another homestead where five small kids hurdled together against the wall for warmth.

We were walking to Mzee Mbuvi Nzilu’s home. We met him as he walked from a nearby shop, his hand in plaster-sling from a fall. His story was not any different.

“Twavenwa methoni (we have been fleeced in brought daylight),” he summarises his story as he stokes his forked walking stick to the ground.

As the sun sinks below the horizon to conceal the wickedness of men, Mzee Nzilu stokes his walking stick on the ground once again and vows, “We want our money back!”

We sought out the area chief, Tito Muthangya on the claims. He was categorical that he had neither taken any money from the old men nor had he heard about the complaints.

“How can that happen when they had been sensitised long before the money came? And if it did happen, why hasn’t anyone reported to my office about the matter? I am not aware of anything of the sort,” Muthangya told The Standard on Sunday.

The chief said he was surprised to hear about the complaints from The Sunday on Standard team when he has been interacting with the locals on a day-to-day basis. He said he cannot invent complaints to act on. Besides, he said, he is not involved in the distribution of the funds.

“My role is to pass information. I passed the information about the transfers and people formed a committee to identify the deserving people. When the money came, I passed the information again and they went to collect it at the post office. My role ended there,” he said.

Area Sub-county Social Development Officer Anne Juma and area MP Francis Nyenze however confirmed they had heard about the complaints about the money being taken back.

Eligible people

“We have gotten complaints from one area and we are investigating the matter. They are not supposed to give anybody the money they get. We have been telling them and we will continue to tell them so. It is really unfortunate that some unscrupulous people are taking advantage of such vulnerable groups but we will catch up with them,” Ms Juma said. Juma said Kitui West has about 400-plus people eligible for the cash transfer project. She urged people to report any such incidents to her office. Mr Nyenze, who is also the Minority Leader in the National Assembly said he would take personal initiative of ensuring the matter is investigated.

“It is a shame that people can take advantage of such a vulnerable group. I have received those reports and I am spending time in the area this weekend to get to the root bottom of the matter. If the chief is involved in any way, he might as well forget about his job,” Nyenze said. According to Lydia Muriuki, the secretary of social development in the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, it is likely that there have been issues in disbursement of the funds on the ground.  However, she could not comment on specifics:

“We are concluding the process of compiling the reports from the ground next week. Our team of monitors out there has been filing reports since the exercise started and we should be able to know by next week how the exercise has fared on,” she said on phone.