Con game: MPs lose money to fake funerals

Suba North MP Millie Odhiambo at Parliament on January 29, 2019. [Boniface Okendo,Standard]

An MP has lifted the lid on a shocking practice in parts of Nyanza where some villagers fake the death of their loved ones to get financial help.

Suba North MP Millie Odhiambo blew the whistle on fake deaths, sparking off debate on social media with some leaders admitting the practice was rife.

Irked after being fleeced, Ms Odhiambo said poverty was no licence for fraud and called out the cons.

“I often stand with my constituents in good and bad times. Due to a high mortality rate, we often have several funerals per week, especially on Thursdays and Fridays. Today, we had about 10. However, two turned out to be fake,” she said.

She added: “Increasingly, people lie about death just to put food on the table. It is very sad.”

In one instance, her representatives arrived at the home of a "bereaved" constituent to condole with the family for losing their son.

"The other family members were shocked to learn they were supposedly bereaved. I attended another one myself only to discover it was fake. There was no funeral,” she said.

Detained

Last year, a woman lied to Kisumu East MP Shakeel Shabir that she had been detained at the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral Hospital because of a huge a bill and needed urgent help.   

When the MP offered to pay the bill, the woman insisted that the money be sent to her phone. It later emerged the woman had not been admitted to the hospital.

Yesterday, Kabondo Kasipul MP Eve Obara revealed that she nearly lost money to a conman who claimed he had lost two relatives in last year’s accident that claimed the lives of more than 50 people in Londiani, Kericho County.

But the MP realised something was amiss when the man was hesitant to provide details of the deceased.

“I told my constituency manager to take his details. The man could not tell us the village he comes from. When we pressed him further, he switched off his phone and disappeared into thin air,” said Mrs Obara. 

National Assembly Minority Leader and Suba South MP John Mbadi also nearly lost money in a similar con game. A constituent approached him claiming to have a patient at St Mary's Hospital in Kayole, Nairobi.

“I sent my office manager who discovered that neither the man nor the patient was in the hospital," he said.