Relatives of the victims of the human-wildlife conflict could soon receive their payout in record time following the introduction of a new administrator.
On Tuesday, Tourism Cabinet Secretary Alfred Mutua introduced a consortium of companies that will pilot a new wildlife claims administration scheme.
He said the move is aimed at making the compensation process for victims efficient and responsive to citizen's needs.
A number of claims have yet to be processed.
“We have paid Sh908 million to the victims in the financial year 2023-24, and we will continue paying,” Mutua said.
The state will soon start to pay out another Sh950 million for the financial year 2023-24.
The consortium will collect all data related to the conflict and the processing of wildlife damage claims.
The slow pace in the processing of claims and the manual nature of data collection, leading to many errors and omissions, have informed the new move.
Should the new pilot succeed, payment for claims for crop and livestock property will take place in 30 days if documentation is in order.
For death or injury, the payout will be within 90 days.
This comes as a reprieve for victims and relatives who have lost their loved ones and property, and have had to wait for more than 10 years to be compensated.
The law provides that deaths caused by wildlife attract Sh5 million in compensation, while injuries attract Sh3 million.
More than 14,000 claims are yet to be addressed, something that has created mistrust between communities and the state, which is yet to settle more than Sh5 billion in compensation claims.
On Tuesday, the Community Wildlife Conservation Committee, which was taken through the new model of compensating victims, was shown how the new system seeks to hasten compensation and weed out fraudulent claims, among others.
About 200 committee members attended the induction exercise at Bomas of Kenya.
The members came from Northern, Eastern, Coast, Tsavo, Mountain, Central Rift, Western and Southern Conservation areas.
The new model will be piloted in Meru, Kajiado, Narok, Taita Taveta, Laikipia and Baringo counties.
Wildlife Principal Secretary Silvia Museiya said there is need to expedite compensation claims.
Kenya Wildlife Service director general Erustus Kanga said about 15,000 claims have not been addressed. He said the KWS could not process them due to the lack of a committee.
Section 19 of the Wildlife Conservation and Management Act 2013 created the Community Wildlife Conservation Committee to review and recommend payment of compensation on claims resulting from loss or damage caused by wildlife.
They help develop and implement, in collaboration with the KWS and community wildlife associations, mechanisms for the mitigation of human-wildlife conflicts.
Kanga said the committee brings together stakeholders to harness participation in conservation and management programmes for wildlife.
He urged the committee to help weed out any corrupt practices that earlier caused compensation to be stopped.
“Rampant fraudulent claims should not be entertained, and you should support victims to get justice,” the KWS director general said.
The new consortium - composed of three institutions, namely, Pula, AB Entheos and Minet - will engage the community, report, verify and approve the claims digitally.
Pula advisers, who are in 19 countries in Africa and Asia, offer agriculture insurance and technology to protect smallholder farmers.
AB Entheos was registered in Kenya in 2014 as a market driver, curating, designing and implementing sustainable financial solutions in Africa.
Minet is a pan-African adviser, delivering risk and human capital solutions. It handles more than 400,000 medical claims and administers schemes worth Sh40 billion annually.
The new consortium will ensure digital payment of the verified and approved claims.
The group said the benefits associated with the new system include a compensation guarantee for all incident types, fair and equitable payouts, improved wildlife coexistence and community attachment, claim verification collaboration and due diligence and improved evidence submission, resulting in higher claims approval ratios.
During the pilot, the consortium and the KWS will be involved in the notification process.
Currently, the KWS receives notification, but going forward, it will be done jointly by the consortium.
Under the new arrangement, the KWS and the consortium will be verifying claims.
Consortium pays the claims.
The victims will dial *202*09# or call toll-free 0800724195 to report an incident and check the claim status.
The project pilot, according to the consortium, was to run between July 2023 and June 2025.