Work on the Nairobi to Naivasha SGR line. FILE PHOTO | NMG
The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) raked in a whopping Sh9.2
billion in compensation for land hived off national parks for
construction of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) and the Southern
By-pass.
Under Phase Two of the SGR that starts from Nairobi to Naivasha, the KWS got Sh4 billion from the Kenya Railways Corporation.
The
rail firm paid KWS Sh1,374,900,00 as compensation for land hived off a
national park for construction of SGR Phase One that runs from Mombasa
to Nairobi, pushing compensation from the rail projects to Sh5.3 billion
The
Kenya Railways acquired 133 kilometres of the SGR Phase One from KWS,
part of it running through Tsavo East and West and the Nairobi National
Park.
For the Southern By-pass, the wildlife agency was
paid Sh3,740,713,830 by the Kenya National Highways Authority (KeNHA)
for land cut off Nairobi National Park for construction of the road. The
SGR compensation was meant for environmental restoration (Sh1.197
billion) and compensation for movement of structures (Sh278 million) but
was diverted to fund operational services under recurrent expenditure
owing to huge underfunding by the Treasury.
The Sh3.74
billion paid to KWS by Kenya Railways for the Southern By-pass
compensation was to be deposited in the Wildlife Endowment Fund but due
to alleged underfunding of recurrent operations, the money went to
recurrent expenditure.
Diversion of funds
“However,
there was no approval obtained from the National Treasury for diversion
of funds contrary to Public Finance Management Act, 2012,”
Auditor-General Edward Ouko says in a report.
John
Waweru, the KWS Director-General, told Parliament that KWS had only
received Sh1.27 billion, leaving a balance of Sh2.47 billion that KRC is
yet to pay.
He said the wildlife agency continues to
demand the remaining Sh6 million from SGR Phase One compensation but the
railways firm had failed to respond.
Mr Waweru said
the KWS redirected the compensation cash for the SGR and the Southern
By-pass after Parliament drastically cut its budgetary support for the
year 2015/16. The National Assembly committee on Environment effected a
Sh1.5 billion cut on KWS budget during the supplementary budget.
“This
shortfall in government funding made operations difficult and as a
stop-gap measure, the board of Trustees approved utilisation of SGR
funds and during the supplementary budget requested the National
Treasury through the parent Ministry for authority to utilise the SGR
funds,” Mr Waweru said.
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