Every often, the public is astonished at the level of greed and dishonesty that attends to national initiatives, even those meant to support the disenfranchised and subjugated. A case in point is the theft of cash meant for people displaced following the 2007/2008 mayhem after a bungled presidential election that pitied Mwai Kibaki against Raila Odinga.
In the peace deal brokered by Kofi Annan, the resultant coalition government undertook to settle and compensate the hundreds of people dispossessed and rendered homeless. But that initiative, which the government estimated would cost Sh20 billion, has been bungled. For one, the exercise took longer than anticipated. Ideally, the compensation and resettlement was to take a short time, to restore the victims to their previous status and allow them to recover and make a fresh start in life. But that was not to be. In itself, that is an aberration and offence against the displaced.
But more profound is the revelation by Auditor-General Edward Ouko in a report tabled before Parliament that some Sh2.7 billion earmarked to pay out the displaced people cannot be accounted for. Apparently, huge sums of money were withdrawn, allegedly to be disbursed to the affected individuals, but was instead diverted to people who cannot be accounted for.
As we reported this week, a web of fraudsters comprising officials from the provincial administration and devolution, working in cahoots with crooked individuals, faked records using forged national identity cards, or duplicated names, to siphon millions of shillings. It is absurd that an exercise so solemn and emotive as that can be turned into a conduit for stealing from the public.
Not lost on anyone is the fact that the whole business of identifying genuine displaced people is compromised. Masqueraders have come up purporting to be dispossessed and used that tag to earn money from the government. Equally disgraceful are violence victims who resorted to using that condition to continue eating out of the public purse through constant demands for bailout.
The violence that uprooted people from what they had traditionally considered home was quite deplorable and must never recur. The ruins and anguish it engendered should be mitigated against. But in no way, whatsoever, should that form a basis for stealing or extorting money from the State.
This is why we implore Parliament to critically review the way the compensation and resettlement of displaced persons was done and, should they find transgressions, prefer stiff sanctions. We must do all it takes to end the pervading culture of public theft, even in grave undertakings intended to assist the afflicted.
