Police in Wajir South has arrested two chiefs been arrested for falsifying census figures through the double listing of households.
According to reports, the Central chief in Habaswein, Wajir South constituency, his assistant and the Leheley chief were arrested on Monday after investigations revealed that they were involved in the malpractice.
Confirming the incident, County Commissioner Lyford Kibaara stated: “Yes I can confirm that the three administrators have been arrested and investigations are ongoing into the matter. They were involved in inflating the numbers in respective locations.
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“How do you explain a situation where a household has increased by double, in some instances triple just a week after doing the pre-listing. It doesn’t add up at all,” he exclaimed.
Kibaara said that they were looking for more culprits.
The incident comes barely two weeks after area regional commissioner Mohamed Birik cautioned chiefs and their assistants against condoning doctoring of the numbers.
It is noted that an investigation is underway to determine the involvement of the enumerators in the affected areas.
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It is further reported that one of the cases where one of the chiefs, who was an enumerator, assigned 100 households to have registered more than 600 individuals, in a sparsely populated region.
Authorities believe the move is part of a scheme by politicians to inflate population figures in their regions for political regions, particularly in areas that are sparsely populated.
In the last census held in 2009, North Eastern Kenya recorded a major increase in its population from 962,143 people in 1999 to 2.3 million in 2009 in what raised serious concerns.
Kenyans have also taken to social media to express their disgust over the irregularities.
Here are some of their reactions:
https://twitter.com/Themasterboy13/status/1166233978296307712
https://twitter.com/bosiboriviews/status/1166200430172545025
We call for total cancellationof the whole process specifically ni Eldas, Wajir East and Tarbaj #WajirCensusFraud
— MBUGUA (@muiru_mbugua) August 27, 2019
https://twitter.com/ItsMarvMarvin/status/1166059503122604033
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