Audit reveals Sh500m IDP cash loss

Photo/FILE

An IDP camp.

A forensic audit has revealed that more than Sh500 million meant for the resettlement of internally displaced persons in Rift Valley between 2007 and 2009 was looted through fictitious dealings.

The money disbursed by the Ministry of Special Programmes to pay stipends to the displaced families during Operation Rudi Nyumbani, is said to have been stolen by senior provincial administrators working in cahoots with special district officers from the ministry.

The funds remain unaccounted for. According to the dossier prepared by Kenya National Audit Office Rift Valley Province for Kipkelion District, the officers implicated were irregularly drawing allowances of more than Sh2 million.

Kipkelion, one of the epicentres of post-election violence, lost a total of Sh4,231,690 out of its allocation of Sh40 million.

Families relocating to their homes were to receive Sh10,000 each but officers paying out the money prepared fictitious lists of IDPs who were “paid” at the expense of genuine victims.

The auditors have launched investigations into the scam to establish the faces behind the looting.

At the same time, the government has ordered Naivasha MP John Mututho to stop his controversial plan to resettle internally displaced families on a 4,500-acre farm in Mumoi, Nakuru.

Special Programmes permanent secretary Andrew Mondoh said the government was opposed to the move.

“We had earlier looked at the land and found out that it was not good. The government does not buy land for a group but individual families,” Mr Mondoh told representatives of the displaced in Nakuru town on Thursday.

Rift Valley provincial commissioner Osman Warfa warned at a meeting in Nakuru that the government would crack the whip on politicians found inciting communities.

“Those looking for votes should not use IDPs to get them. People are politicising this issue for nothing,” he said. The region was the theatre of the 2008 post-election violence.

Mr Mututho ferried a group of IDPs from their transitional camps in Gilgil to the Nakuru farm.

Mr Mondoh said the government would resettle all IDPs in the next three months with effect from December 19, last year.

“We have finalised all the plans of resettling them. The government and other development partners have given us enough funds to buy land and build houses for them,” said Mr Mondoh.

He noted that his ministry was allocated Sh4.2 billion for the exercise and had so far spent Sh3.1 billion.

He also said that the Lands ministry was given Sh2.9 billion and it had spent 50 per cent of this vote purchasing land for the IDPs.