Lamu fishermen to receive Ksh.1.76B compensation

EACC had stopped the payments pending investigations into reports that ghost beneficiaries had been included in a list 4,734 persons set to get a share of the Ksh.1.7 billion. 

Following the completion of the investigation, the Commission has now moved to Court seeking orders to substitute the list with the validated list of genuine beneficiaries as established by the investigation exercise.

In its Application filed before the Court of Appeal, the Commission has informed the Court that it has completed investigations into the alleged fraud and identified ghost and ineligible beneficiaries in the list. 

The EACC investigation was in response to a complaint received at the Commission’s Mombasa Regional offices on April 4, 2023 alleging corruption and misappropriation of public funds in the compensation of fishermen affected by the LAPSSET Project which was awarded by the Malindi High Court in May 2018 for the disruption of both cultural and economic activities of the fishing community in Lamu.

It was alleged that during a verification payout exercise carried out by KPA Lamu officials, names of the initial registered beneficiaries were missing/removed from the final vetted list and that list was allegedly manipulated to add names of ineligible persons, some representing Government officials.

According to the EACC findings, 4,164 fishermen in the final list that has been submitted and already adopted in court are genuine. A total of 433 fishermen were genuine fishermen but were left out from the final list submitted to court.

Additionally, 569 were identified as ineligible fishermen and ought to be struck out from the list.

Each fisherman whose economic livelihood was affected by the establishment of LAPSSET Project is set to receive Ksh. 241,714.32.