Secrets of the census saga

• INVESTIGATION: How conflicting figures compiled by the Statistics Bureau on the one hand and NSIS on the other, and the surge in population in the North forced the government to shelve results

Fears that last year’s population and housing census figures were doctored explain the decision by the government to shelve the provisional results, Sunday Nation investigations show.

Informed sources told the Sunday Nation that a meeting to brief the President and the Prime Minister on the census results ended prematurely after figures from the National Security Intelligence Service (NSIS) contradicted those compiled by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS).

According to NSIS statistics, the population in North Eastern Province had increased by a staggering 140 per cent since the last census in 1999.

If the NSIS figures were to be believed, it would put the population in North Eastern province to 2.2 million, up from 962,144 in 1999.

The intelligence agency attributed the high figures to infiltration of the province by aliens from the neighbouring war-torn Somalia. The country has been without a government since 1991.

On Saturday, the government issued new guidelines for the issuance of identity cards in the province to ensure aliens do not acquire the vital document. However, it was not clear if the move was related to the census saga.

Under the new guidelines, local residents have been given powers to scrutinise the list of the vetted applicants. The list would be placed on public notice boards at the local level and at the district commissioner and the provincial commissioner’s offices.

Addressing a leaders’ meeting in his boardroom, area PC James Ole Serinai said that the move was aimed at stopping refugees from acquiring the citizenship document and reducing corruption among registration officials.

He said applicants aged 25 and above and returnees would be referred to the DCs and the district security and intelligence committee for further investigations and approval before they are issued with the ID cards.

Also included in the 15 new procedures is that the finger prints of those applicants rejected would be taken and kept by the National Registration Board.

The National Security Intelligence Service and the Criminal Investigation Department officials shall be attending all vetting meetings.

The provisional census figures show that North Eastern Province also recorded the second highest growth rate. It was further noted that North Eastern was the only province, apart from Nairobi, whose male population outnumbered that of females.

More men

Planning and National Development minister Wycliffe Oparanya confirmed that provisional census figures for North Eastern and Nairobi showed the number of men was more than women.

“This is true especially in towns because of rural-urban migration involving men looking for jobs,” Mr Oparanya noted.

The provisional figures that were to be released last month have been delayed twice for unexplained reasons.

The government is now engaged in what experts called “post-census analysis” before releasing the full figures for the exercise, conducted last August.

While Nairobi’s provisional figures were attributed to rural-urban migration, no concrete explanation could be given for the upsurge of the population in the country’s least populated province.

But sources at Herufi House confided to the Sunday Nation that enumerators in the province gave out forms to village elders and Imams to collect information due to communication problems.

“It is not surprising that they inflated figures,” our sources, who cannot be quoted because they are not authorised to speak to the media, said.

Central Province recorded the lowest growth rate in the entire country. The community topped census figures 10 years ago.

And Mandera was singled out as the district with the highest growth whose male population far outstripped the female population.

The provisional figures place the country’s population at 39.5 million with the expansive Rift Valley accounting for 10 million people.

Kenya has porous borders with all its neighbouring countries. But the Kenya-Somalia border is an exception as it stretches for thousands of kilometres from the Indian Ocean town of Lamu to Mandera town near Ethiopia.

Al-Shabaab militiamen have made several incursions into Kenya especially in Mandera town. In one such incident last year, they kidnapped two nuns.

Since the fighting broke out in Somalia between al-Shabaab and the Transitional Federal Government led by Sheikh Sharif Ahmed over the control of the war-torn country, more than 300,000 Somali refugees have been accommodated in two camps in Dadaab and Kakuma.

Immigration minister Otieno Kajwang said more than 288,000 Somali refugees were at Dadaab while a further 25,000 had been moved to Kakuma.

“There is an average of 100 people crossing into Kenya every day from Somalia through our designated crossing points,” the minister said acknowledging that many others used panya (unofficial) routes.

He said that while his ministry could account for the people in refugee camps, those who infiltrated the country through the unmanned areas of the border posed a risk to Kenya.

“Some may be combatants escaping and end up engaging in legal and illegal businesses,” Mr Kajwang said.

He said it was such people who posed a major risk in cities like Nairobi and Mombasa among others.

The minister, however, said the issuing of alien identity cards had been stepped up to include refugees and other foreigners. He said that having the aliens captured in the database was a deterrence for those trying to acquire Kenyan documents.

Mr Oparanya said his ministry was ready with provisional census figures but admitted that they had errors.

“The figures were done manually and had errors,” the minister said, but declined to release further details.

Mr Oparanya, however, said KNBS was stopped from giving the provisional figures because it had tabulated figures for the 158 districts that were in existence as of December 31, 2008.

“The country now has 254 districts and the cabinet wanted all the new districts included,” the minister said.

A document with provisional census results seen by the Sunday Nation indicates that Central and Nyanza provinces have the lowest population growth rate of 24.48 per cent and 30.36 per cent respectively.

Nairobi has the highest growth rate of 52.11 closely followed by North Eastern at 44.92 per cent. Rift Valley is third with 43.66 per cent. Nairobi is also the most densely populated province with 4,684 persons per square kilometre.

But Rift Valley tops in the number of people with 10 million, followed by Eastern with 6.1 million while Nyanza is third with 5.7 million.

Central is fourth with 4.8 million, followed by Western at 4.7 million, Coast with 3.4 million and Nairobi 3.3 million. North Eastern has the lowest population of 1.4 million people.