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THE EXTENT OF OUR GREED... EATING WHAT BELONGS TO THE POOR.

Sometimes the behaviour of Kenyans make me doubt whether their greed and selfish ego  can ever be rivaled by any other state in the world. For us, it is always about me, myself and I. It is laughable when you see Kenyans condemn corruption in higher offices when it is a fact that it is in their DNA.

This week, Thika Town Today covered the registration of the elderly, persons with disability, orphans and vulnerable children. We were really shocked at the level of greed and hypocrisy exhibited by Kenyans.

The government came up with this programme with the aim of assisting the least fortunate amongst us. But our experience there made us conclude that all along, this money has been ending up with the financially able and undeserving cases, some even rich enough to host a number of deserving cases.

The meek and genuine cases usually end up with nothing because they aint as vocal and aggressive as these frauds. The undeserving 'beneficiaries' use the position in the society to influence the choice of who would be elected as the groups' representatives, thus gaining control of the funds in proxy. When their proxies assume their positions, they determine the people to be shortlisted as beneficiaries to the fund. This is where the genuine cases lose out.

The frauds select their own as they shout down the others in order to intimidate them into submission. So, when the list is finally handed over to the Ministry officials, only a few of the deserving cases make it.

When we were there, we identified several elderly people who had businesses and residential houses to let sitting among the poor. Some were still on government pension. I could count a number of old men and women whose kids were so well-off financially but were seated there ready to deny a deserving case his right. 

There was also a couple of cases whereby those concerned had brought some elderly people from a different county all with the intention to defraud the government at the expense of the intended beneficiaries.

We were made to understand that these people usually presented themselves in make-shift shanties whenever the social services assessors came to their homes to determine the truth. In this way, the assessors would be hoodwinked to believe that they were deserving cases.

We were however impressed by the way the local administrators (the chief and his assistants) as well as the ministry officials handled the situation. They were able to quell the fraudsters' attempts to sneak into the beneficiaries' shortlist. Attempts to cause a scene by claiming that the officers were corruptly sneaking in their people were also thwarted.

Unfortunately, the success of that exercise has not always been the case. Very many Kenyans are being denied their rights to benefiting from government assistance due to the greed and selfish egos of others, beating logic and the good intention of the government.

The above situation is replicates itself when it comes to bursaries and other aids by the government. It is a high time action was taken against the perpetrators.

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