Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 1025749,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1025749/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 445,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Isiolo North, KPP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Hassan Hulufo",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13348,
        "legal_name": "Hassan Oda Hulufo",
        "slug": "hassan-oda-hulufo-2"
    },
    "content": "of Trustees, because at the time of inquiry there was no Board of Trustees. The term of the former Board had expired and the CS had not appointed a new Board. Therefore, we had to engage former members of the Board of Trustees. We also had a meeting with the management of the KWS and suspended officers. Through our interactions and receipt of both written and oral submissions from these agencies, we were able to make some observations as a Committee. One of the key observations is poor coordination between teams involved in the translocation. We realised that as a result of the lack of Board of Trustees at that particular time, there was poor coordination within KWS. We also realised that before the term of the former Board ended, it created some powerful offices which were reporting directly to the Board Char, in a way creating parallel reporting structures and creating confusion. This has also contributed to poor coordination and poor information sharing. We also observed that because KWS is poorly funded by the Exchequer, it is dependent to a large extent on donor funding. To that extent, sometimes donors have undue influence in terms of pushing them to do what they may not be willing to do. On the same issue, as the agency which is solely mandated with conservation of wildlife, pressure from donors should not have been an excuse for the Ministry to agree to a relocation which has led to the death of the rhinos. As a result of what we gathered, the deaths resulted from salt poisoning. The rhinos were provided with soft water after they were offloaded to the new site, but as a result of the breakdown of the water bowser which was fetching soft water, we realised that the rangers decided to fetch salty water from a borehole. Therefore, largely the deaths are attributed to consumption of that salty water. As we went further to establish why such a thing could happen, we realised that the officer who had information on the quality of water from that particular borehole, a borehole which was specifically sunk to provide water to the translocated animals, did not provide that report to the veterinarians and rangers. It was only discovered during the inquiry into the death of the rhinos that actually the main cause of the deaths was not poisoning. The water had three times more salt compared to acceptable limit suitable for the rhinos. We have made a number of recommendations on the basis of our observations. Among our recommendations is that one Dr. Mohamed Omar, on suspension then, who was responsible for ecosystem monitoring and who did not provide information on the quality of water to the team that was handling the translocation should be held accountable. The Cabinet Secretary for Tourism and Wildlife should also take responsibility for the death of the rhinos because he delayed to appoint a new Board. The Board was not in place for three months. But after the death of the rhinos, the Board was constituted. Therefore, absence of the Board at the time of translocation was largely responsible for the laxity and poor decision-making. The former Board had actually postponed the translocation until certain conditions were fulfilled: conditions on the health of the range where the wildlife were to be relocated to and the quality of water. We have also recommended that KWS should develop policies that will help them to engage donors in such a way that they retain their mandate of conservation without necessarily yielding to undue pressure from donors. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, we have also realised that in the process of amending legislations, sometimes we have created problems. We realise that the veterinarians working for KWS are uniformed officers and sometimes, even when they feel that the decisions by their superiors are not technically sound, they are constrained from countermanding the decisions of their seniors. Therefore, there is also need to reconsider inclusion of Kenya Veterinary Board in the Board of Trustees of KWS. I beg to move. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}