NAIROBI, Kenya Aug 25 — The government has expressed support for the reintroduction of compensation for death or injury sustained from sharks, whales, stonefish and sting rays under a new amendment Bill.
The Wildlife Conservation and Management (Amendment) Bill 2023 sponsored by Lamu East MP Ruweida Obo also proposes to change to the Act by including snakes in the compensation category.
Lawmakers dropped species proposed for inclusion in a 2019 amendment.
Appearing before the National Assembly Committee on Tourism and Wildlife on Thursday, Wildlife Principal Secretary Silvia Museiya however urged MPs to increase the budgetary allocation to sufficiently resource the compensation process.
“As a ministry, we are fully aligned in our support for this amendment bill, considering that these species had previously been accounted for in the compensation schedule,” she said.
“We can only ask parliament to increase the budget allocated to compensation claims arising from wildlife attacks.”
Museiya also urged lawmakers to consolidate a regulatory framework as the absence of such will portend an influx of compensation claims.
Compensable claim
The PS said it is crucial to “determine the threshold of a compensable claim” noting that the ideal framework should seek to compensate people who have taken due care but suffered loss and damage nevertheless.
“We do not want to fall into the trap, where we have 100 species of compensable animals and that require some regulatory framework and those regulations we can develop together with the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS),” Museiya added.
In 2019, the State pushed for the amendment that removed snake bites and marine creatures from the compensation schedule to help bring down compensation claims which stood at Sh2.6 billion in the year to June 2023.
Maara MP Kareke Mbiuki, who chairs the committee, however questioned whether the support for enhancement of the compensation schedule was conditional approval subject to parliament increasing the budget.
“Madam PS, are you giving conditional approvals that we increase the compensation schedule subject to parliament, giving the extra funding?” posed Mbiuki.
Museiya said the ministry had no problem with the four species removed from the 2013 act to be reinstated to the compensation schedule.
“We are saying that by introducing four of those water species. You could have more members by the time it goes to the floor of the house adding say snakes to the compensable schedule,” she said.
“It is not an impossibility that other Members of Parliament would want to add more species in their areas of concern.”
