Kenya: Soaking the Poor

 ‘Curb pollution at the household level’ It’s capitalism that’s the real problem.

‘A revised version of the controversial eco-levy tax will soon be tabled in Kenya’s Parliament.’

‘Speaking to Citizen TV Kenya, Treasury Secretary John Mbadi confirmed that "about 49 measures" were being considered as part of a tax amendment bill.

The eco-levy tax aims to curb pollution and waste management at the office and household level.

Unlike the initial proposal, this one will exclude sanitary towels, the newly appointed secretary has insisted.

Companies remains in the authorities' sights. The minister rebuked a challenge by US beverage manufacturer Coca-Cola which opposed the 10 percent levy on all locally manufactured plastics.

"They will tell us why they oppose it," Mbadi said. "This country is not a dumping place."

"If you are injurious to the environment then you must pay for helping make good the harm that you have caused."

The government also aims to collect more taxes by prolonging the tax amnesty period by six months.

The cancellation of Kenya's Finance Bill 2024 in June followed widespread anti-tax protests. This forced President William Ruto to reassess the budget and explore alternative revenue sources.

During the handover ceremony last week, Treasury Secretary John Mbadi said he was keen on reinstating some provisions contained in the scrapped finance bill.’

Additional sources • AP

AfricaNews 19 August

https://www.africanews.com/2024/08/19/kenya-to-revive-scrapped-tax-plans-risking-unrest/

‘Kenya's Supreme Court has temporarily suspended a lower court's decision that declared the 2023 finance law unconstitutional. The suspension aims to maintain budget stability until the government's appeal is heard next month.

The finance law, presented annually, outlines the government's tax and revenue measures. A recent ruling by the Court of Appeal that last year's Finance Act was unconstitutional dealt a blow to President William Ruto's administration.

This comes after Ruto withdrew this year's finance bill in June following significant youth-led protests, marking one of the biggest challenges of his presidency.

President Ruto has faced the difficult task of balancing the needs of Kenya's struggling citizens with demands from international lenders like the IMF. He argues that tax increases are necessary to fund development programs and manage the country's debt.

The Supreme Court stated that maintaining stability in the budget process is in the public's best interest while the appeal is being considered. Hearings on the constitutionality of the 2023 finance law are scheduled for September 10 and 11.

The government, which has been using the 2023 law to collect taxes since the withdrawal of this year's bill, has not yet commented on the ruling.

The 2023 law faced legal challenges after violent protests led by opposition parties last year. The law includes measures such as doubling the value-added tax on fuel, introducing a housing tax, and raising the top personal income tax rate.’

AfricaNews 20 August

https://www.africanews.com/2024/08/20/supreme-court-temporarily-halts-ruling-nullifying-finance-act-2023/

IMF still forcing austerity on Africans

 

It’s reported that, ‘Police in Kenya have clashed with protesters rallying against a controversial finance bill that the East African country’s government is pushing through parliament. One person has been shot dead and at least 105 others have been arrested across the country, a coalition of rights groups said.

Protests broke out in Kenya in response to the government’s 2024 Finance Bill, which passed the second stage of reading.

A parliamentary committee recommended that the government withdraw some new taxes proposed in the bill, including an annual 2.5% tax on car ownership and a 16% tax on bread, following a public outcry.

The government has justified the tax measures as necessary to reduce the country’s budget deficit, but protesters argue that they will be harmful to the economy and escalate the already high cost of living.

The finance bill is in response to the International Monetary Fund’s recommendation that Nairobi make a “sizable and upfront” fiscal adjustment in its 2024/25 budget to reduce state borrowing.’

The below from SOYMB 21 April 2022

‘The conditions of nearly 90% of the International Monetary Fund's pandemic-related loans are forcing developing nations suffering some of the world's worst humanitarian crises to implement austerity measures that fuel further impoverishment and inequality, an analysis published by Oxfam International revealed. 13 out of the 15 IMF loan programs negotiated during the second year of the pandemic require new austerity measures such as taxes on food and fuel or spending cuts that could put vital public services at risk.This stands in stark contrast with IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva's advice to the European Union last year that the wealthy bloc should not endanger its economic recovery with "the suffocating force of austerity."

"This epitomizes the IMF's double standard," Oxfam International senior policy adviser Nabil Abdo said in a statement. "It is warning rich countries against austerity while forcing poorer ones into it."

The IMF has reverted to its highly controversial practice of requiring nations to

 impose the type of austerity measures that have exacerbated poverty and

 inequality, stymied countries' efforts to meet climate goals, fuelled global unrest,

 and even played a key role in sparking revolutions. For example, the conditions

 of a 2021 loan of $2.3 billion to Kenya compelled the country to freeze public

 sector pay for three years while mandating higher taxes on food and cooking

 gas. More than three million Kenyans are facing acute hunger as the driest

 conditions in decades spread a devastating drought across the country. Oxfam

 notes, "Nearly half of all households in Kenya are having to borrow food or buy

 it on credit."

Meanwhile, Sudan has had to end fuel subsidies, a policy that has disproportionately affected the nearly 50% of the population that is impoverished. Over 14 million people need humanitarian assistance (almost one in every three people) and 9.8 million are food insecure in Sudan, which imports 87% of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine.

Nine nations including Cameroon, Senegal, and Surinam must introduce or increase the collection of value-added taxes (VAT), which often apply to everyday products like food and clothing, and fall disproportionately on people living in poverty; and

Ten countries including Kenya and Namibia are likely to freeze or cut public sector wages and jobs, which could mean lower quality of education and fewer nurses and doctors in countries already short of healthcare staff. Namibia had fewer than six doctors per 10,000 people when Covid-19 struck’.

87% of IMF Loans Forcing Austerity on Crisis-Ravaged Nations: Analysis (commondreams.org)

https://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2022/04/austerity-imposed-by-imf.html

Kenya's misfortune

 

Kenya was a British colony from 1888 to 1962.

The king and queen of Britain are enjoying a holiday known as a royal tour in Kenya. Spoiler alert; no apologies for Britain’s previous exploitation of that country were made.

Does SOYMB include readers who are royalists, i.e. those who, in the twenty first century, support the UK capitalist state, and are happy to be known as ‘subjects’? If so,

In a footnote to Capital, Volume One, Marx wrote; ‘One man is king only because other men stand in the relation of subjects to him. They, on the contrary, imagine that they are subjects because he is king.’

The Kenyans, like many other people forcibly colonised, became British ‘subjects’ whether they wanted to be or not.

The August 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard contained a book review pertaining to Kenya.

Not Yet Uhuru, by Oginga Odinga.

‘The people of Kenya have had the misfortune, reserved for colonial peoples, of experiencing two sorts of capitalism. One at second hand through colonial occupation, and the other, a more modern version, exploitation by capitalists of local origin and by the economic interests of the ‘advanced' countries.

Today, control of the resources of Kenya is in the hands of large international firms and of the Kenya government. The local would-be capitalists and bureaucrats have certainly derived much benefit from independence, but the vast majority of the people of Kenya, who were at one time led to expect a post-independence egalitarian Utopia, have been disappointed.

In this autobiography we learn well how the “benefits” of capitalism were first introduced to Kenya. There is an interesting survey of early land-appropriation by the British authorities and of the break-up of the tribal system through forced wage- labour. Odinga is particularly good in his account of the Mau Mau uprising and the reasons for it. Once the rebellion presented a real threat to British authority in Kenya, and thus to British economic interests, ruthless measures were taken. All civil liberties were suppressed—an African could be arrested in the street at any time. All Kikuyu (the main tribe concerned in the rebellion) were forced either to collaborate with the authorities or to join the Mau Mau bands as a result of persecution. British capitalism wanted to hold on to Kenya so as to have an assured and cheap supply of raw materials and a market monopoly.

Today, some four-and-a-half years after independence, things have not changed much. The people of Kenya are now exploited not only by businessmen with white skins, but also by civil servants and politicians who have somehow succeeded in securing company directorships and land. Little free expression of opposition to the government is allowed. The only consolation that the people may draw is perhaps in seeing men with skin the same colour as theirs replacing white colonists at the wheels of large motor-cars manufactured in West Germany.

Odinga is allowed, probably by virtue of his popularity (he was at one time Vice-President of the republic and Kenyatta's right-hand man) to lead a tiny opposition of nine in parliament. His party is, however, allowed few extra-parliamentary ‘privileges’ such as the holding of public meetings or recruiting campaigns.

This autobiography, as well as being a good document of British colonial history, is worthwhile reading because part at least of Odinga's conclusion is acceptable. Odinga himself left high state office for the political wilderness because he saw that national independence does not in itself end servitude for the mass of the people. He also recognises the oligarchic character of the present Kenyan government. To solve these problems, however, he presents a creed which he calls “African Socialism". The use of the word “Socialism" in independent Africa is very common but worth little. It is used, for instance, by both government and opposition in Kenya. The general purpose of this is clear: to give obviously oligarchic governments a façade of popular support and concern for justice and equality.

Odinga’s “African Socialism" would take the form of “a Kenya government backed by popular enthusiasm and national mobilisation". We suggest to the people of Kenya, and indeed to the people of the world, that the only way they will solve their problems will be by overthrowing capitalism which deprives and degrades them. This can only be done, not on a national scale, but by an internationally united working class who reject all leaders and governments.

Not Yet Uhuru (freedom) is the personal and political testament of a sincere, but unfortunately misguided, political figure. It is well worth reading for the insights which it offers into the lot of the people of Kenya.’

Amit Pandy

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2017/08/capitalism-in-kenya-1968.html

Kenya protests soaring cost of living

 

Kenyans are experiencing the effects of both capitalism and the futility of trusting in ‘leaders’. The soaring cost of living has led to protests with extreme violence resulting, according to the United Nations human Rights Office, in protesters deaths and injuries. To protect its power, and those of the asset owning class, the State will always initially resort to those members of the working class who have undertaken to defend bourgeoisie interests even to the extent of beating and shooting fellow workers.

‘Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga has called for three days of anti-government protests starting on Wednesday.

The latest demonstrations are against tax hikes and follow two previous sets of protests this year against the soaring cost of living in East Africa’s economic hub and alleged malpractice in last year’s presidential election, which Odinga lost.

The new taxes were to take effect on July 1, but a Nairobi court halted their implementation pending further legal proceedings. Still, a tax increase on petroleum products was imposed, increasing fuel costs.

Odinga said more protests could be held after this week.

What are the latest protests about?

Odinga announced the protests on June 14 against a new finance bill, which introduced a 1.5 percent housing levy, a 16 percent tax on petroleum products and a 16 percent value-added tax (VAT) on money that policyholders receive as compensation from insurance companies.

“That finance bill will be the last nail in the coffin,” Odinga told his supporters. “If it is passed, it will make Kenyans slaves of paying taxes. …When they pass that bill, that will be the trumpet call. Will you be ready?”

The bill was signed into law on June 26.

On July 10, Kenya’s High Court extended an order barring Treasury Cabinet Secretary Njuguna Ndung’u from implementing it.

The government mostly obeyed the ruling except for the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority, which increased fuel prices, triggering an increase in public transport costs.

The price increases are from 182.04 shillings ($1.29) to 195.53 shillings ($1.38) per litre of petrol, 164.28 shillings ($1.16) to 176.67 shillings ($1.25) for a litre of diesel and from 161.48 shillings ($1.14) to 173.44 shillings ($1.22) per litre of kerosene.

What is the finance act about? 

During the presidential campaign,the eventual winner, William Ruto, promised to reduce the cost of living and positioned himself as a poor “hustler” eager to wrest power away from the ruling dynasties that President Uhuru Kenyatta and Odinga, sons of independent Kenya’s first president and vice president, represented. The younger Kenyatta endorsed the younger Odinga rather than his deputy, but Ruto was declared the winner and was sworn into office in September. President Ruto inherited an enormous government debt. At the time Kenyatta took office in 2013, it stood at 1.79 trillion shillings ($13bn). By the time Kenyatta left office, it had ballooned to 8.7 trillion shillings ($61bn).

Ruto then removed fuel subsidies, leading to a spike in the prices of basic commodities like bread and maize flour, which are directly affected by the cost of energy and transport.“In addition to being very costly, consumption subsidy interventions are prone to abuse, they distort markets and create uncertainty, including artificial shortages of the very products being subsidised,” he said in his inauguration speech.

New taxes followed. In addition to the housing levy, petroleum products tax and insurance compensation tax, digital assets taxes were also introduced. The government also imposed a 3 percent levy on transfer charges applied during the exchange of assets that cover non-fungible tokens (NFTs), cryptocurrencies, and digital currencies.

The finance act also introduced a 15 percent withholding tax for digital content creators, a 35 percent tax for people earning above 500,000 shillings ($3,536) annually and the VAT on petroleum products was increased from 8 percent to 16 percent.

According to economists, the law will increase tax revenues collected from high-income earners while shrinking individual net income for low-income earners because of increased tax burdens.

What have the effects of the protests been?

According to a statement by a spokesman for the United Nations Human Rights Office, up to 23 people were killed by the police and dozens were injured in demonstrations in the past week. A couple of opposition members were also arrested.

“The UN is very concerned by the widespread violence and allegations of disproportionate use of force, including the use of firearms by the police during protests in Kenya,” Jeremy Laurence said. “We call for prompt, thorough, independent and transparent investigations into the deaths and injuries.

”What happens next? 

Thousands of opposition supporters have protested in Nairobi and a number of other cities on back-to-back Mondays and Thursdays despite a strong pushback from law enforcement, so massive numbers are expected for the protests this week’.

https://www.aljazeeracom/news/2023/7/18/kenya-braces-for-3-days-of-anti-govt-protest-all-the-details

Capitalism in Kenya (1968)

Book Review from the August 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Not Yet Uhuru, by Oginga Odinga. Heinman Educational Books. 35s.

The people of Kenya have had the misfortune, reserved for colonial peoples, of experiencing two sorts of capitalism. One at second hand through colonial occupation, and the other, a more modern version, exploitation by capitalists of local origin and by the economic interests of the ‘advanced' countries.

Today, control of the resources of Kenya is in the hands of large international firms and of the Kenya government. The local would-be capitalists and bureaucrats have certainly derived much benefit from independence, but the vast majority of the people of Kenya, who were at one time led to expect a post-independence egalitarian Utopia, have been disappointed.

In this autobiography we learn well how the “benefits” of capitalism were first introduced to Kenya. There is an interesting survey of early land-appropriation by the British authorities and of the break-up of the tribal system through forced wage- labour. Odinga is particularly good in his account of the Mau Mau uprising and the reasons for it. Once the rebellion presented a real threat to British authority in Kenya, and thus to British economic interests, ruthless measures were taken. All civil liberties were suppressed—an African could be arrested in the street at any time. All Kikuyu (the main tribe concerned in the rebellion) were forced either to collaborate with the authorities or to join the Mau Mau bands as a result of persecution. British capitalism wanted to hold on to Kenya so as to have an assured and cheap supply of raw materials and a market monopoly.

Today, some four-and-a-half years after independence, things have not changed much. The people of Kenya are now exploited not only by businessmen with white skins, but also by civil servants and politicians who have somehow succeeded in securing company directorships and land. Little free expression of opposition to the government is allowed. The only consolation that the people may draw is perhaps in seeing men with skin the same colour as theirs replacing white colonists at the wheels of large motor-cars manufactured in West Germany.

Odinga is allowed, probably by virtue of his popularity (he was at one time Vice-President of the republic and Kenyatta's right-hand man) to lead a tiny opposition of nine in parliament. His party is, however, allowed few extra-parliamentary ‘privileges’ such as the holding of public meetings or recruiting campaigns.

This autobiography, as well as being a good document of British colonial history, is worthwhile reading because part at least of Odinga's conclusion is acceptable. Odinga himself left high state office for the political wilderness because he saw that national independence does not in itself end servitude for the mass of the people. He also recognises the oligarchic character of the present Kenyan government. To solve these problems, however, he presents a creed which he calls “African Socialism". The use of the word “Socialism" in independent Africa is very common but worth little. It is used, for instance, by both government and opposition in Kenya. The general purpose of this is clear: to give obviously oligarchic governments a facade of popular support and concern for justice and equality.

Odinga’s “African Socialism" would take the form of “a Kenya government backed by popular enthusiasm and national mobilisation". We suggest to the people of Kenya, and indeed to the people of the world, that the only way they will solve their problems will be by overthrowing capitalism which deprives and degrades them. This can only be done, not on a national scale, but by an internationally united working class who reject all leaders and governments.

Not Yet Uhuru (freedom) is the personal and political testament of a sincere, but unfortunately misguided, political figure. It is well worth reading for the insights which it offers into the lot of the people of Kenya.

Amit Pandya

Discrimination, mutilation & poverty

The dawn of socialism and the end of pre-history will see the long overdue demise of such barbaric cultural practices as female genital mutilation, which, according to one recent estimate, has claimed 200 million victims in 30 different countries.   Breast ironing is largely confined to Cameroon, but affects as many as one in four pubescent girls.    Down's Syndrome is rarely diagnosed as such in Sierra Leone and boys and girls with the condition are seen as 'devil children' in need of black magic.   And in Kenya, '65% of women and girls (pdf) are unable to afford sanitary pads. “When people earn less than two bucks a day, is a family going to [get] bread, milk and food, or a girl’s sanitary pads?” says Angela Lagat, chief brand marketing officer at ZanaAfrica.    The situation is so dire that in a 2015 study of 3000 Kenyan women, Dr Penelope Phillips-Howard found 1 in 10 15-year-old girls were having sex to get money to pay for sanitary ware' (thrguardian.com, 5 January).

What’s Next for Dadaab

Kenya now aims to close Dadaab by the end of June 2017. Conditions in  Dadaab, the world’s largest refugee complex, are deteriorating fast. Mark Yarnell from Refugees International says its residents face either starvation or returning to a conflict zone. The refugees being slowly starved out of Dadaab are expected to return to the very conditions that caused them to flee in the first place.

A funding shortage has forced the Word Food Program (WFP) to cut food rations for refugees in Kenya and beginning this month, the WFP cut monthly food rations in half for all refugees in Kenya through at least April unless it receives $13.7 million from donor governments. By cutting food, the international community, in addition to causing immediate harm, is reinforcing the Kenyan government’s message that Somali refugees are not welcome.

A prolonged drought across the border in Somalia, combined with ongoing insecurity, is exacerbating a humanitarian crisis there. According to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, the current rainy season has been 50 to 70 percent below average thus far. More than 5 million Somalis – about 40 percent of the population – are in need of food aid, and that number is expected to rise in the coming months unless there is an immediate surge in humanitarian assistance. As the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Somalia, Peter de Clercq, stated: “The drought situation is extremely worrying and could deteriorate rapidly if we don’t act now. We are running against time.”

Despite the push to return refugees, fighting inside Somalia continues to force civilians to flee their homes on a daily basis. It also hinders the ability of aid workers to access people in need, thus compounding the impact of the drought. Recently, fighting between forces loyal to the semi-autonomous regions of Galmudug and Puntland displaced over 75,000 people.

Refugees in Dadaab, most of whom are Somali, face an impossible choice: stay in Dadaab where the future is uncertain and conditions are deteriorating or return to Somalia to face insecurity and hunger. The U.N. maintains that the returns are voluntary, that refugees have a choice. But so long as a deadline for camp closure exists with no other option for refugees but to return to Somalia, the logic does not square. One woman as she waited outside a UNHCR return help desk, where refugees can sign up for the repatriation program. I asked for her thoughts on the voluntariness of the program. “This is about fear. It’s not about choice,” she said emphatically.

In Dadaab, nearly every refugee we interviewed told us they were fearful about what might happen to them if they did not sign up for the UNHCR return program, which includes $200 upon departure from Dadaab and $200 upon arrival in Somalia, plus a six-month subsidy per household.

“Everybody wants to take the money before being kicked out,” one refugee told us. “Maybe the government will beat us or set the camp on fire,” another said. A number of refugees spoke about threatening messages from Kenyan government officials that aired on the local radio station – messages such as, “We are going to show you the way to go back if you don’t go on your own.”

Kenya deserves to be criticized harshly for threatening to shutter the camps and push refugees out. But they are not the only ones at fault. Lofty commitments and declarations by the UN meant little as they did not translate to tangible improvements for people on the ground.

https://www.newsdeeply.com/refugees/community/2016/12/20/whats-next-for-dadaab-refugees-face-an-impossible-choice

Is it Voluntary?

In November 2013, following a terrorist attack on Nairobi’s Westgate Mall, the Foreign Ministries of Somalia and Kenya along with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) agreed to facilitate the repatriation of all Somalia nationals living in Dadaab, citing Kenya’s concerns over national security. Following the Garissa University attack in April 2015, in which al-Shabaab killed 148 students, the government’s resolve to take action hardened. Kenya’s Deputy President William Ruto announced that all remaining refugees in Dadaab would have to be repatriated by that September. Although this deadline came and went, and the Kenyan government has since admitted it will be too difficult to evacuate the camps by November 2016 as later promised, the spectre of Dadaab’s closure still hangs over the remaining 260,00-odd Somali refugees living in its five camps. The voluntary repatriation process is expected to end in 2018. Those who won’t go back, UNHCR has said, will be resettled in a third country, while non-Somali refugees will be rehoused at the Kakuma refugee camp in the north of the country. In addition, there are an estimated 40,000 Kenyan citizens of Somali origin thought to be living in Dadaab (primarily because they receive free food rations, according to a report by the Danish Refugee Council).

The country’s Interior Ministry spokesperson Mwenda Njoka explains, “Kenya’s refugee policy is to provide temporary stay for refugees and to let them go back home.”

In practical terms, this means that most refugees are only permitted to live in camps, unless they are seeking hospital treatment or pursuing further education. At present, it is almost impossible for a refugee to secure the legal right to work in Kenya.

“The Kenyan authorities are not giving Somali refugees a real choice between staying and leaving, and the UN refugee agency isn’t giving people accurate information about security conditions in Somalia,” said Human Rights Watch (HRW) refugee rights director Bill Frelick in a press statement. “There is no way these returns can be considered voluntary,” which goes against international law.

Protect Refugees

ONE WORLD, ONE CONTINENT, ONE PEOPLE

Kenya said in May it sought to shut down the Dadaab refugee camp, the world’s largest refugee site, which hosts more than 300,000 Somalis, by the year’s end. Kenya has also insisted that the evacuation of Dadaab is being conducted in accordance with international law.

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said on Monday that a “voluntary” process that sees Somali refugees at a huge camp inside Kenya returned to their country is no more voluntary.

“The voluntary returns process does not meet international standards,” the NRC said. The agency said that aside from being forced to return to Somali, the refugees also face insecurity back home, where violence and inadequacy of basic services are rampant.

Jan Egeland, the secretary-general of the NRC, has countered by saying, “The pressure to push more than 280,000 registered refugees from Dadaab camp has led to chaotic and disorganized returns. From what we have seen on the ground, it is no longer voluntary, dignified nor safe,” referring to the repatriation process.

“The number of vulnerable Somalis planned for return far outstrips the resources available to support them in Somalia,” Neil Turner, the NRC’s Kenya country director, explained.

Human Rights Watch also slammed Kenya’s repatriation program, saying it did not meet international standards for voluntary return.

Disciple of Evil (1)

Deya is a 63-year-old, Bentley-driving preacher. The self-styled “Archbishop”, who claims to perform healing miracles at his services across the UK, has raised millions in donations and tax breaks since his charity opened in 1997. The charitable status of his church has already been investigated twice, and he has been fighting extradition to Kenya for years. Allegations against Deya initially surfaced in the Kenyan media in 2004 and he has been wanted by Kenyan authorities since his arrest in the UK in 2006 to face allegations of child-trafficking. Police in Kenya allege that Deya’s “miracle babies” are part of an international baby-snatching ring, connected to disappearances from hospitals in Nairobi.

Kenyan police allege that several children were sold to Deya by women living in slums in Nairobi. According to Radik Malinskow, who works for child-trafficking charity HAART in Kenya, poverty has a large part to play.

“Some of those woman have several children to feed and often they find it difficult to accommodate a new child,” he told IRIN. “The poverty in the slums is very high. Women find it very difficult to cope with the lack of economical resources and some of them have to survive on one or two dollars a day.”

Gilbert Deya Ministries describes itself as a Christian charity that aims to spread the word of God. Its website, which presents Deya as a visionary ordained by God, refutes the “negative publicity” surrounding Deya’s “miracles” stating: “the truth remains he has never been found guilty by the court of law in the UK”. In his 2003 book “Curses of Sexual Sins”, Deya declares AIDS a curse, calls homosexuality an “abomination”, suggests infertility may be caused by “generation curses”, and tells the reader he can help them with “miracle babies”. Despite the controversy surrounding the child-trafficking allegations and Deya’s possible extradition, his ministries have raised more than £10 million ($12.98 million) in the UK over the past decade, some of it public money from British charity Gift Aid tax breaks.

Gilbert Deya Ministries, which is based in London, has a number of churches across the UK, as well as a branch in Belgium. Publications by Deya and his church say there are also branches in India, Zimbabwe, and the United States. Deya has published books, maintains an extensive social media presence, and at one point ran a TV channel carried by Sky. Billboards for his tour in August this year in Manchester, UK, promised “unusual miracles”.

In 2014, Deya’s ministries had an annual income of more than £864,000 (some $1.4 million at the time). About 90 percent of this came from donations. An analysis of the ministries’ accounts on the Charity Commission website reveals “a cocktail of bad accounting”, according to Joe Saxton from nfpSynergy, a consultancy firm for charities. Typically, 70 percent of a charity’s spending is on “charitable activities”, and about one or two percent on governance costs. But, according to Gilbert Deya Ministry’s own accounts, it spent nothing on “charitable activities”, and its governance costs for 2014 were around 30 percent of its income. “An awful lot of questions have come out of the accounts,” said Saxton. “There are strange patterns of expenditure like writing off bad debts, and things that I can’t think of a logical explanation for.”

The Charity Commission’s website reveal that Gilbert Deya Ministries was late filing its accounts two years in a row. For 2012, the charity provided the regulator with its accounts 453 days late. The previous year, the accounts were 152 days late. Alongside this, the “charitable activities” expenditure, compared to its governance and legal costs, has dropped significantly. Its most recent accounts, in 2014, declare that it spent £0 on “charitable activities” in that year. In August, the Charity Commission announced the latest investigation into Deya’s operations, referring to issues related to “safeguarding” – a term used in connection with protection of children – whilst also raising concerns over the charity “selling olive oil to which it attributed healing qualities”. It also said the trustees “have failed to report serious incidents to the commission and to provide adequate responses to the questions raised”. Deya remains one of six trustees of the charity in the UK. Whilst the controversy surrounding Gilbert Deya Ministries persists, the charity continues to grow. Official land documents obtained by IRIN reveal that the charity made more than £3.8 million ($4.95 million) from the recent sale of its property in Peckham, London. It has since moved its headquarters to a Greater London suburb, Sutton. Posts on the Gilbert Deya Ministries Facebook page claim that the charity also purchased 3.54 hectares of land in Sutton, on which Deya says he aims to build a hotel and a petrol station.

Deya’s wife has been in and out of court and prison in Kenya on child-trafficking charges. Mary Deya was initially arrested in 2005. In 2007, she was sentenced to two years in prison for stealing a child and one year for obtaining a false birth certificate. She was convicted in a second case in 2011. In 2014, Kenya’s high court upheld her conviction, and, finally, in 2015, Mary Deya dropped a further appeal and continued to serve her time.

Attempts to extradite Deya to Kenya to face child-trafficking charges appear to have stalled. The Kenyan authorities requested his extradition in 2007. Deya appealed, stating that the extradition would breach his human rights and suggesting that his connection to Raila Odinga, the previous prime minister of Kenya, meant he could face torture back in his native country. Although he lost the appeal, the Home Office has never followed through with the extradition. In 2014, Kenyan media reported that one sticking point was that the UK had requested that Deya be held in one of two higher-standard prison facilities. the UK Home Office told Deya’s local MP that it was “considering further representations from Mr. Deya” claiming that his extradition would breach the European Convention on Human Rights.

MP David Lammy, told IRIN.

“Clearly there needs to be a review of how this despicable child trafficker and fraudster has been able to run rings around judicial and regulatory systems for so many years,” he said. “We should never forget that Gilbert Deya’s victims are innocent children who will have to live with his actions for the rest of their lives.”

Madness of the Market

Fifty years ago, President Jomo Kenyatta’s administration, with aid from donors, lured hundreds of thousands of farmers in western Kenya and Nyanza to grow sugar cane under contract. That smallholder cane farming is an experiment that went wrong is the untold story of western Kenya and Nyanza. The failure is something few technocrats and politicians want to admit. The government has continued to pour billions of shillings into the sector — trapping more farmers in a poverty cycle while still hoping that a solution will be found. It was hoped that this would give the regions’ peasant farmers a cash crop that could lift them out of poverty. The pioneer crop of farmers have since passed their farms on to the next generation. Sadly, however, the second generation farmers have nothing to show for their inheritance. Yet, merchants have grown wealthy from the proceeds of the crop.

Martin Wakhu’s life is anything but sweet — and all because he is a sugarcane farmer who has over the years invested his time and effort in the thankless, cashless cash-crop. Mr Wakhu’s mud-walled and grass-thatched hut is all he can show after growing sugarcane for over eight years. Like many of his age-mates, Mr Wakhu’s poverty exhibits the kind of economic havoc and helplessness that a new generation of cane growers is inheriting by growing a crop that has zero-returns for farmers, but which has nevertheless created multi-millionaires within the distribution chain. Farmers like Mr Wakhu are a sad reminder of a dream deferred and an experiment that went wrong. Farmers keep on grappling with low economic returns, high costs of inputs, poor roads and delayed payments. Mr Wakhu remain trapped in the sugar conundrum as factories are left with little or no cane to crush.

Mumias, so far the largest miller in Kenya with about 66,000 registered outgrowers, is only doing 20 per cent of its total capacity as it struggles with a biting cane shortage. Although the company produces about 50 per cent of the domestic sugar output, it continues to run up losses. It survives largely on government bailouts.

Smallholder plots were supposed to mimic large plantations in South Africa, Malawi, Uganda and Zambia. Today, Kenya imports sugar from these four nations — thanks to its heavy reliance on smallholder production and ageing factories. Kenya produces sugar at Sh95,000 per tonne on average, meaning that sugar from its mills is more expensive than its equivalent from Sudan, Egypt, Swaziland, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania and Uganda. Malawi’s average production cost is Sh35,000 per tonne.

With the disorganisation in the fields, farmers lose either by oversupplying or undersupplying factories. The entry of sugar barons has not helped either. They lose either way because when there is undersupply, the factories don’t make much and can’t pay them and when there is an oversupply, harvesting is not done on time and cane is delivered when it has no value.

http://www.nation.co.ke/news/How-sugar-experiment-backfired/1056-3386408-6cbxtbz/

Hiding the ugly truth

Caroline Elkins, a Harvard historian, study, ‘Britain’s Gulag’, chronicled how the British had battled this anticolonial uprising by confining some 1.5 million Kenyans to a network of detention camps and heavily patrolled villages. It was a tale of systematic violence and high-level cover-ups. The Mau Mau uprising was an armed rebellion launched by the Kikuyu, who had lost land during colonisation.

The British, declaring a state of emergency in October 1952, proceeded to attack the movement along two tracks. They waged a forest war against 20,000 Mau Mau fighters, and, with African allies, also targeted a bigger civilian enemy: roughly 1.5 million Kikuyu thought to have proclaimed their allegiance to the Mau Mau campaign for land and freedom. That fight took place in a system of detention camps. The British had sought to quell the Mau Mau uprising by instituting a policy of mass detention. This system – “Britain’s gulag”, as Elkins called it – had affected far more people than previously understood. She calculated that the camps had held not 80,000 detainees, as official figures stated, but between 160,000 and 320,000. She also came to understand that colonial authorities had herded Kikuyu women and children into some 800 enclosed villages dispersed across the countryside. These heavily patrolled villages – cordoned off by barbed wire, spiked trenches and watchtowers – amounted to another form of detention. In camps, villages and other outposts, the Kikuyu suffered forced labour, disease, starvation, torture, rape and murder.

Many documents relating to the detention camps were either absent or still classified as confidential 50 years after the war. Elkins discovered that the British had torched documents before their 1963 withdrawal from Kenya. Files indicate that roughly 3.5 tons of Kenyan documents were bound for the incinerator. The scale of the cleansing had been enormous. For example, three departments had maintained files for each of the reported 80,000 detainees. At a minimum, there should have been 240,000 files in the archives. They also expatriated colonial records that were considered too sensitive to be left in the hands of successor governments. One record 1961 dispatch from the British colonial secretary to authorities in Kenya and elsewhere, states that no documents should be handed over to a successor regime that might, among other things, “embarrass” Her Majesty’s Government. British officials acknowledged that more than 1,500 files, encompassing over 100 linear feet of storage, had been flown from Kenya to London in 1963. Under legal pressure, the UK government finally acknowledged that the records had been stashed at a high-security storage facility that the Foreign Office shared with the intelligence agencies MI5 and MI6. It also revealed a bigger secret. This same repository, Hanslope Park, held files removed from a total of 37 former colonies.

Elkins found a few hundred. But some important records escaped destruction. One stamped “secret”, revealed a system for breaking recalcitrant detainees by isolating them, torturing them and forcing them to work. This was called the “dilution technique”. Britain’s Colonial Office had endorsed it. Over some 300 interviews, Elkins heard testimony after testimony of torture.

After the country gained independence in 1963, its first prime minister and president, Jomo Kenyatta, a Kikuyu, declared repeatedly that Kenyans must “forgive and forget the past”. This helped contain the hatred between Kikuyu who joined the Mau Mau revolt and those who fought alongside the British. Elkins met young Kikuyu who didn’t know their parents or grandparents had been detained; Kikuyu who didn’t know the reason they had been forbidden to play with their neighbour’s children was that the neighbour had been a collaborator who raped their mother. Mau Mau was still a banned movement in Kenya, and would remain so until 2002.

“I’ve come to believe that during the Mau Mau war British forces wielded their authority with a savagery that betrayed a perverse colonial logic,” Elkins wrote in Britain’s Gulag. “Only by detaining nearly the entire Kikuyu population of 1.5 million people and physically and psychologically atomising its men, women, and children could colonial authority be restored and the civilising mission reinstated.” After nearly a decade of oral and archival research, she had uncovered “a murderous campaign to eliminate Kikuyu people, a campaign that left tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, dead”. 130,000 and 300,000 Kikuyu are unaccounted for, an estimate derived from Elkins’s analysis of census figures.

At the Royal Courts of Justice in London plaintiffs from rural Kenya have come to seek justice. In court, lawyers representing the British government tried to have the Mau Mau case tossed out. They argued that Britain could not be held responsible because liability for any colonial abuses had devolved to the Kenyan government upon independence. But the presiding judge, Richard McCombe, dismissed the government’s bid to dodge responsibility as “dishonourable”. He ruled that the claim could move forward. “There is ample evidence even in the few papers that I have seen suggesting that there may have been systematic torture of detainees,” he wrote in July 2011. Foreign Office lawyers then conceded that the elderly Kenyan claimants had suffered torture during the Mau Mau rebellion. But too much time had elapsed for a fair trial, they contended. There weren’t enough surviving witnesses. The evidence was insufficient. In October 2012, Justice McCombe rejected those arguments, too. The British government, defeated repeatedly in court, moved to settle the Mau Mau case. On 6 June 2013, the foreign secretary, William Hague, read a statement in parliament announcing an unprecedented agreement to compensate 5,228 Kenyans who were tortured and abused during the insurrection. Each would receive about £3,800. “The British government recognises that Kenyans were subject to torture and other forms of ill-treatment at the hands of the colonial administration,” Hague said. Britain “sincerely regrets that these abuses took place.” It was the first time Britain had admitted carrying out torture anywhere in its former empire.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/aug/18/uncovering-truth-british-empire-caroline-elkins-mau-mau

NGO Inequality

Feelings of unfair treatment in the workplace are common among Kenyan NGO employees – and not without reason. The humanitarian and development sectors are known for their differential treatment of expats and locals, with the latter receiving fewer benefits and considerably lower salaries compared to their foreign colleagues.

A circular sent out by the board highlighted this disparity, arguing that expats often earn four or five times more than their Kenyan counterparts. The document reported that “expatriates are often too quick to dismiss dual salary systems as a non-issue, and the subject of wage disparities is a taboo topic in the charity sector.”

The NGO Board CEO Fazul Mohamed criticized foreign NGO workers for “getting rich from the charity sector.” 

A survey of 1,300 local and expat workers found a wage gap that ranges from 400-900% and causes significant resentment among local workers. Research measured the size of the wage gap and its effects on workers in six lower-income countries: India, China, Malawi, Uganda, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea. These organisations were drawn from the aid, education, government and business sectors of the six countries. Participants worked in a range of job roles, from teachers to engineers, to doctors and managers, with expertise in areas such as microfinance, child labour, program administration and much more. The organisations draw aid funding from governments and donors around the globe.

Imagine finding out that your colleagues earn five times more than you. Not only that, but they get all sorts of benefits you’re not eligible for. They take a month of leave; you get 12 days. Your employer pays for their accommodation, health insurance and even their children’s school fees; you don’t get any of that. But you have comparable skills and qualifications. You do the same work. In fact, you understand the context of your work better than your higher-paid colleagues. So why are they earning so much more than you? What if you found out it was simply because of your nationality? Dual salaries are popularly referred to in some Pacific countries as “economic apartheid”.

The wage and benefits gap cannot be explained by differences in experience or skills. Rather, dual salaries exist because expatriates originate from higher-income economies and labour markets.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2016/apr/20/expat-wages-900-per-cent-higher-than-local-employees-study?CMP=share_btn_tw

The working poor

Forty-six per cent of Kenyans, according to World Bank, live below the poverty line. This means that they survive on less than $1 (Sh101) a day. In 2014, World Bank reported that four out of 10 Kenyans live below the poverty line.

With the number of the poor residing in Kenya’s informal settlements, the slum dwellers are now devising ways of earning a sustainable income. Abubakar Akay Abdullah, a 40-year- old father of two, does not fall in the category of people living below the poverty line, despite the fact that he resides in Africa’s biggest informal settlement. “I think a poor person is one who cannot afford his daily needs and I do not think anyone chooses to be poor. I have never slept hungry so I do not regard myself as poor,” he says. Abdullah is a charcoal distributor in Kibera’s Katwekera area. “This is my only source of income. I start my work at 6. 30am and close at 9 pm,” he explains. His work involves distribution of packaged charcoal to clients in various parts of Kibera. The father of two may not be among the Kenya’s middle class, but says he still provides for his family despite the fact that he resides a sprawling slum. In a day, Abdullah makes about Sh700 from his charcoal business.

A 2013 study by Grail Research puts the country’s middle class at 44.9 per cent of the total population, stating that due to the increased consumption by this segment, the country’s economy is on a growth trajectory. The upper middle class, according to the 2013 Rising Middle Class of Africa report, the middle class spend between $10 (Sh1,011) and $20 (Sh2,022) per day.

Kenya's wealthy

How rich is rich?

According to court documents filed by his wife Catherine Jelugat, Billionaire Ken Kiplagat's properties are listed as shares in Cove Investment Limited (with estimated value of Sh100 million); shares in Tetra Radio Limited (with an estimated value of Sh500 million) and shares in Toads Media Group Limited (with an estimated value of Sh8 billion).

The lawyer also owns shares in Bonde Conservancy Limited; shares in Simba Radio Limited (with an estimated value of Sh1 billion); shares in Southern Cross Engineering Limited; shares in Naivasha Cottages Limited; and 10 retreat villas on land number LR No.209/354/11. Other properties are two houses in Green Park (Great Rift Valley Lodge); 40 acres of land in Kabarak, 100 acres of land in Kabarak in Menengai West; a house in Eldoret, near State House; 50 acres of land in Eldoret; a house in Milimani area, Nakuru, Crater Climb; a villa in Rea Vipingo, Kilifi; and to crown the impressive real estate listing, a house in South Kensington, London, UK.

Further, Catherine lists cash in two local banks and three international banks in Jersey, Switzerland, and the UK. She claims cash in the local banks is Sh600 million. She further lists US$ 2 million (Sh200 million) from sale of shares in Trunking Systems Limited and another Sh1 billion award from HCC 141 of 2008 (Milimani Commercial Courts). Also listed as cash assets is Sh87 million from the sale of shares in Simba Radio.

Kenya learns from Europe

At the end of last week, the Kenyan government announced that the “hosting of refugees has to come to an end”, citing economic, security and environmental concerns. The government has already disbanded its Department of Refugee Affairs and is working to close its camps in the “shortest time possible.” Currently, Kenya hosts over 600,000 refugees, many of whom are from Somalia and South Sudan. The country is also home to the Dadaab complex, the largest refugee camp in the world.

The camp closures mean refugees will be repatriated to their countries of origin. War-torn Somalia is facing a drought, exacerbating food insecurity and malnutrition in the country. Approximately 4.7 million people—nearly 40 percent—are in need of humanitarian assistance in the East African nation. The ongoing conflict in neighbouring South Sudan has also displaced and killed millions, worsened access to food and water and destroyed schools and hospitals.

International human rights groups have lambasted the move. The Kenyan government’s decision to close its refugee camps will have disastrous consequences and must be reconsidered, international organisations have stated.

Amnesty International’s (AI) Regional Director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes Muthoni Wanyeki called the decision “reckless” and an “abdication” of its responsibility to protect the vulnerable. Wanyeki said that the forced repatriation would be in “violation of Kenya’s obligations under international law.” She concluded, “Forced return to situations of persecution or conflict is not an option.”

Similarly, Médecins Sans Frontières’ (MSF) Head of Mission in Kenya Liesbeth Aelbrecht said that the move highlights the “continued” and “blatant neglect” of refugees around the world.

The real economic migrants - the rich

Kenya's super rich are stashing their money abroad and might relocate there in just under ten years to safeguard the interest of their children according to the report on global wealth. Andrew Shirley, editor of the Knight Frank Wealth report says there is an increasing interest in property in the United Kingdom and Dubai. Shirley explained that with a lot of the wealthy children studying abroad, they have acquired global exposure and are more open to opportunities out there.

"There is a great mobility of wealth with Africans and Kenyans buying property abroad. London is the most popular for Kenyans searching for property followed by Dubai," he told the Nation in Nairobi yesterday.

According to Shirley 24 per cent of Africa's Super-rich plan ditching the continent in the next decade for personal security, political issues and to access higher quality of education, health and life.

With at least 202 new entries into the elite club of dollar millionaires last year pushing the current figure to 8,500 up from 8,300 and which is expected to grow 80 per cent to 15,300 in the next ten years, Kenya might witness significant amount of wealth locked abroad.

Laptops or desks?

Six-year-old Kenyan pupil Kizito Wafula could soon be using a government-funded laptop, but his school in the west of the country has no desks or chairs - and, crucially, no electricity to power it. Kenya's government pledged to give first year primary school students access to laptops in an ambitious $600m (£425m) Digischool scheme.

Kizito will continue to use scraps of paper to write down his notes, keeping them bundled in a small black plastic bag. Kizito and his six siblings live with their grandmother, who cannot afford to buy exercise books. "He doesn't have proper books so he borrows paper plucked from other pupils books," says Florence Misiko, the head teacher at St Jude Nabuyeywe in Bungoma, a poor farming area.

At school, he sits on the dusty floor with his 90 classmates, using torn cardboard boxes and worn out sacks as mats.

"It is really hard for these pupils to learn like this," says Mrs Misiko. "But we are doing everything we can even with little resources. We have actually just received several bags of cement from the county government to finish off the floors of the classes. But we need much much more, as you can see," she says, pointing at the gaping holes where windows and doors should be. Even if we get laptops, how would we have used them under these conditions? Our priority now is getting students desks and enough books."

St Jude Nabuyeywe is typical of many schools in poor and rural areas of Kenya - connection to the electricity grid and internet remains a pipe dream. 20% of Kenya's primary schools do not have the basic necessities.

Kenya and Cancer

In Kenya, cancer treatment is becoming increasingly expensive. Few private hospitals are equipped to provide treatment, which makes it possible for those that are to charge higher rates. According to the Ministry of Health, there are 40,000 new cases of cancer reported annually in the country. Another 27,000 patients succumb to the disease each year. From 2011 to 2014, cancer deaths rose by 23 percent, up from 17 percent in 2010.

According to Faraja Cancer Support, an NGO that works with cancer patients, "the average cost of treatment ranges from $1,600 to $5,000, which is way beyond the reach of many Kenyans". Even the $5 cost of one radiotherapy session at the public hospital can be prohibitively expensive for poor Kenyans who live on a dollar or less a day. Private hospitals can charge around $300, about 60 times more for a single radiotherapy session.

Machines such as the positron emission tomography-magnetic resonance-imaging scanner can be critical to detecting cancer. But such technology is unavailable in Kenya because it uses radiation, and the country does not have laws and mechanisms in place to enable the safe handling of radioactive isotopes. Kenyatta National Hospital is the largest referral hospital not only in Kenya but in East and Central Africa. It is also the only public cancer treatment facility in the country. But it is poorly equipped and over-stretched. In March 2015, hundreds of cancer patients were unable to proceed with their scheduled cancer treatment when the two radiotherapy machines at KNH broke down. When the radiotherapy machines broke down again last September, Fatuma Hamisi, who had travelled to Nairobi from Kwale, about 500km away, was forced to reschedule her appointment for months later. The machines in question have been in use for 20 years, treating up to 100 patients a day - instead of the recommended limit of 50. Cancer victims from all over the country flood the facility to get cheap radiotherapy sessions. But they can sometimes wait almost a year for an appointment.

Dr Catherine Nyongesa, a Kenyan cancer specialist, explainsthe importance of prompt treatment: "Cancer treatment for patients should start as soon as possible. If delayed, it matures from a curable stage to an incurable one, hence making it more painful and expensive to deal with. The main cause [of delays] is a lack of financial support."

Cancer drugs are also expensive since they are not subsidised. Those Kenyans who can afford it often go outside the country for their cancer treatment. According to the country's health ministry, each year 10,000 Kenyans are treated elsewhere - mainly in India and South Africa, which both have more advanced medical facilities. These patients are thought to spend a total of $108m on treatment abroad. One thing you can be sure of, you receive better treatment if you are rich. 

Dadaab - A refuge?

When people fled the civil war in Somalia they hoped their  stay across the border in Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camp would be short-lived. Twenty-five years and three generations on of refugees 350,000 Somalis call this barren, dusty settlement, home. Dadaab was initially established as a temporary haven for some 90,000 refugees fleeing the 1991 clan fighting. It is now a sprawling, bustling complex of five camps, boasting cinemas and soccer leagues – the third largest city in Kenya, after Nairobi and Mombasa. Dadaab is the world’s largest refugee complex. It is a commercial hub, with refugees running successful businesses from bakeries to designer boutiques. It provides services and a ready market for locals, and a huge tax return to the Kenyan government. A report commissioned by the governments of Norway, Denmark and Kenya in 2010 found that the camps’ businesses generated an annual turnover of around $25 million. The host community earned some $1.8 million from the sale of livestock alone to refugees.

“We pay a heavy tax to the government every year. Much more money than what they collect from the locals. Yet they don’t give back anything to us,” said Ali Kasim, a member of one of Dadaab’s business associations. “We cannot challenge them. Unlike the host community, who are not afraid to demand their rights.”

One reason for Dadaab’s growth is the Kenyan government’s strict encampment policy, which prevents refugees from settling outside. Most governments have traditionally seen this as convenient logistically, and as a way to reduce potential friction with host communities. It’s increasingly argued that refugee camps should only be a last resort as they create more problems than they solve. They are not only unsustainable over the long term – damaging to the environment and a turn-off for donors – but in corralling refugees behind their gates, they also deny them basic rights and freedoms.

Dadaab is under the overall control of the Kenyan government and UN refugee agency, UNHCR. But its five camps – Dagahaley, Hagadera, Ifo and more recent additions Ifo II and Kambioos – are in practical terms run by democratically-elected community volunteers.

“We work hand in hand with the aid agencies. We have developed a very smooth system where we coordinate all the activities of the camps ranging from sanitation to security,” explained Rukia Ali Rage, the chairwoman of Ifo camp. "It would be impossible for UNHCR and its partner agencies to implement their programmes without the support of the community leaders,” she told IRIN. 

Rage took over the leadership of Ifo in a camp-wide election in 2014, and is due to step down when her term ends later this year. It’s a lesson in democracy that the Somali government in Mogadishu, where elections are also due this year, will hopefully emulate.

The role of community leaders became significant out of necessity. UN staff temporarily pulled out of Dadaab in 2011 following the kidnapping of aid workers, and youth volunteers took over running the camps' basic services.

“We have an umbrella youth consortium consisting of several youth groups. Each group carries out a project that is similar to the ones run by the UN and its implementing partners,” said Ali Hussein, deputy chair of the Ifo youth consortium. “In this way, we not only develop our capacity, but we also hold the agencies accountable and help our community in return.”

But while that is positive, “the biggest challenge we have is that we are not involved in the initial design of the projects,” said Rage.  “We would like to be given a more active role in the decision-making at the early stage so that we can better represent the interest of the people of concern.”

A big threat hangs over Dadaab. With the rise of al-Shabab and its high-profile attacks inside Kenya, politicians have been quick to accuse the camps of providing sanctuary and support to the jihadists. That ignores the fact that al-Shabab also recruits - highly successfully - among non-ethnic Somalis in Kenya. In April last year, Deputy President William Ruto ordered the closure of Dadaab and the return of all refugees following an al-Shabab attack on Garissa University – 100km to the southwest – that killed 142 students. Under international pressure, and following an uproar from human rights groups, he backpedaled.

Only a modest 5,000 refugees have taken advantage of a repatriation programme that began in December 2014.  Most of those who have volunteered are the relatively new arrivals that entered Dadaab between 2006 and 2011, fleeing violence and famine.

“We have been here for more than 20 years and we have nowhere to return to. Our homes were destroyed during the conflict,” said Abukar Ahmed, a long-term resident of Ifo camp. “Those who are returning arrived only a few years ago and have all their belongings intact.”

Abdirashid Abdullahi, with Dadaab’s Gargaar humanitarian FM radio, explained.

“For a significant number of refugees, the only home they know is Kenya. So keeping them in camps against their will is not helping them,” he said. “It’s time to review the repatriation process and look for other sustainable solutions to bring an end to the world’s largest refugee complex.”