Kenya is increasingly becoming a land of fakes, counterfeits and deepfakes. Anything that can be faked is counterfeited to win money for ‘enterprising’ citizens.
The cons are faking it without favour or fear of punishment. Contraband deals blossom under the noses of hapless citizens. The predicted ‘wash wash’ era is abroad.
Kenyans fake academic, medical, death and birth certificates. There are fake doctors, operating healthcare clinics with fake certifications. Village versions of fake doctors treat their patients with diluted ‘procaine’, and quality-subsidised aspirin.
The quacks sometimes mix procaine with milk or the whitish liquid from the euphorbia plant. Sometimes the ‘treated’ die. Some survive like victims sometimes do in the hands of genuine doctors. Gambling with people’s lives comes easily to entrepreneurs of deceit.
There are fake policemen, holding fake ranks, riding roughshod over the polity. Some get away with deception for so long that they become part of the system of mendacity.
The renamed National Hospital Insurance Fund has fallen prey to fake hospitals, fake patients and fake claims. But the agency receives genuine contributions from trusting subscribers.
In June 2023, a local newspaper published a multimedia expose on the rot at the NHIF. The exposure tracked victims of a fraudulent scheme in which four hospitals allegedly pocketed hundreds of millions of shillings in fictitious claims.
The fake claims attracted real money from the public health insurer. Genuine claims are either not honoured or take too long to pass through bureaucratic controls.
Delayed claims are blamed on delayed remittances by employers. But keen observers also know corruption and bureaucratic ineptitude are among the challenges of service delivery by the public insurer.
After the findings of the investigation were published, the Ministry of Health suspended culpable NHIF managers in the two counties where the newspaper carried out its investigations.
The government agency also suspended contracts with six hospitals identified in the investigation. But these token actions did little to reform the broken health system.
Fake schools were found to be receiving real public capitation. The masterminds of the con were sitting right inside Jogoo House, the headquarters of the Ministry of Education.
Some schools also fake enrolment. They claim a higher enrollment of pupils while targeting higher capitation. The con has always worked for the perpetrators. Collusion and dearth of accountability are real threats to public services.
‘Enterprising’ Kenyans fake certificates of good conduct, even when they know the act is an abhorrent illustration of bad manners. The perpetrators and their victims are caught in a crisis of integrity.
Fake seeds are packaged to con gullible farmers: The cons take ordinary seeds from the farm, even from the third cycle of harvesting. They colour the grains with redoxide, dry the seeds before packing, and then impose a Kenya Bureau of Standards mark of quality on the package. The seal of the deception is complete when this is done.
Fake fertilisers, fake drugs, fake title deeds and fake news fly around without let or restraint.
Even ordinary people, including the supposed innocent Mama Mboga, have been caught in the faking business. But this is nothing new for motorists on the Nakuru-Eldoret or Nakuru-Kericho highway, especially around Kedowa and Mau Summit.
Irish potato vendors pack buckets, from the half-empty to half-rotten, along the way. They put the good in the basement of the container, then the rotten ones in the middle, and quality pieces at the top. Sometimes the base of the containers is pushed inside to reduce their holding capacity.
They sell these to motorists who are in too much of a hurry to verify the quality and quantity of the potatoes they are buying. The 10-kg pack that once sold for Sh250, has since fallen in quality, but rose in price to Sh1,000 or more.
Consumers pay more for less because the vendors want an easy way into their hungry pockets.
Charcoal sellers have since joined the fray. They know roadside consumers buy by the sacks. They introduce jungly stone into the sacks to fill them up, while upping the weight. The prices have since risen, while the quality and quantity have plummeted.
Bleeding victims out of their money is the overarching business of enterprising Kenyans. Kazi ni Kazi – is taking a new high.