KWS on a slippery road down the drain

Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) personnel on board a helicopter try to tranquillise a female black rhino before transporting it as part of a rhino translocation exercise In the Nairobi National Park, Kenya, June 26, 2018. REUTERS/Baz Ratner

Poor leadership, inadequate funding and lack of support from the national Government is threatening to bring down the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS).

Investigations by the Sunday Standard show that an entity that once had a fleet of over 100 vehicles, a huge percentage of these are stationary, some for reasons as trivial as lack of spare parts.

“Things are no longer moving here. For vehicles to be serviced even for minor problems, you have to ask Nairobi headquarters.

“We have a number of vehicles which are grounded because of small mechanical problems but you cannot incur any budget here,” said one of the junior officials at the park.

To draw a graphic picture of the slippery road on which KWS finds itself, another source at the air wing said at one time last year, none of the 14 fixed wing planes in the parks were in good working condition. Another source however confirmed that four of them are now in working condition.

Accumulated costs

KWS initially had twelve light wing planes, including a 14-seater Cessna Caravan and two helicopters, a Bell 206 and 7-seater Bell 407.

“Several of the planes are grounded as there is no budget to finance the servicing of the planes. This has led to accumulated costs of service,” said the source.

It is against this background that Tourism Cabinet Secretary Najib Balala has promised far-reaching changes at the agency entrusted with the nation’s wildlife that are a global attraction.

Mr Balala says the restructuring will involve a shake-up of the top leadership and the decentralisation of the management.

“I came in six months ago and I have identified the challenges the organisation is going through. Kenyans will soon begin to see action. We will not allow the gem of the country to be run down,” Balala said.

He noted that while KWS is facing challenges, the business at the conservancies was flourishing, a fact that he said needed to be relooked.

“Unlike in the past, private firms are having more control over wildlife more than KWS and this is unique to Kenya. In other countries that is not the case. We will seek to have more say on our animals by helping the organisation flourish,” the CS said.

“We are planning to pilot ten premier parks by giving them autonomy in authority and budget so that they can flourish. This is among a raft of measures that we have put in place to help revamp KWS,” he added. The symptomatic rot at the State agency could be traced back to the management’s failure to fully implement the recommendations of two internal audit reports.

Incitement of staff

The first audit report detailed the challenges that KWS was going through and cited poor management.

The management committee report chaired by Tom Sipul, then Deputy Director Corporate Services also identified incitement of staff and the encroachment of its land by herders.

Based on the report, the board then chaired by the late former Cabinet minister David Mwiraria formed another ad hoc committee including National Intelligence Service, mobile phone firms, private sector, criminal investigation department and the police which indicted among other people 37 staff who were later sacked. The employees, majority being security officers at the parks were accused of colluding with poachers.

Phone records linked the employees to a poaching syndicate.

But KWS spokesperson Paul Gathitu said the agency was not run down and a lot of work was being done to boost operations.

Another officer who sought anonymity because he is not authorised to speak on behalf of the organisation said that indeed things were not good at KWS but expressed optimism that with the new board chaired by Julius Waithaka, things could change for the better.

“There are a lot of factors, change of guards at the organisation has had a toll plus other external factors like political temperature in the country which had affected the inflow of local and international tourists,” the officer said.

He said KWS relied 80 per cent on park fees and any disturbance on the source of income would impact negatively on its operations.

A senior officer at KWS admitted that things got worse after the exit of former Director General Julius Kipngetich.

Keen to reap

Other senior officers who left are William Waweru (Deputy Director Finance and Administration), Mr Sipul (Deputy Director Corporate Services) and Christopher Oludhe (Head Supply Chain Management).

Today, KWS has been forced to depend on the ‘super’ parks such as Nairobi, Tsavo East, West, Lake Nakuru, Aberdares and Amboseli for survival and to run other parks across the country.

In an interview with Sunday Standard, Mr Sipul said KWSwas suffering from mismanagement by individuals who are keen to reap from the agency.

“KWS collected over Sh4 billion annually back then.  remember one time we hit Sh5 billion mark. This allowed the organisation to maintain an effective monitoring system with new fleet of vehicles and well-maintained planes, good road network and a force that was well catered for,” he said.

According to the 2015 financial report signed by board chair Richard Leakey and Mr Kiprono as the secretary, the income dropped from Sh3.4 billion to Sh2 billion in a span of one year.

The drop in income could have led to the reshuffle last year that saw the return of former Managing Director Nehemiah Rotich as the Chief Operating Officer in charge of Finance, Administration and Human Resources among others. Rotich’s term however ended last month and has not been renewed.

Wanton destruction

Conservationists also blame KWS’ woes on the board’s decision to allow the Standard Gauge Railway to split the 28,963-acre Nairobi National Park right in the middle. The encroachment on the park started in 2014 when about 90 acres were hived off to construct the Southern Bypass.

Laikipia Wildlife Forum Executive Director Mordecai Ogada accused the Government of using KWS to endorse the wanton destruction of parks that they should be protecting.

“This ‘development’ is sad for Kenyans. How come we are destroying what our fathers and grandfathers protected for all that time? KWS is mandated to protect the wildlife but unfortunately they are the ones who are endangering the animals through risky decisions,” Dr Ogada said.

“When they start construction with the heavy materials in the tiny park, will there be any park left? he posed.

“The animals will flee and sadly there is no migratory route for them to exit. It is just a disaster in the waiting, it is painful to see this happening,” he added.  

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