President Kenyatta orders for prosecution of ivory traders, accomplices

Officials working in government agencies concerned with exports in the country are now on the spot after the recent impounding of two major consignments of wildlife trophies believed to have been smuggled through Kenya.

Police have so far arrested a Mombasa tycoon and his two sons in connection to the three tonnes of ivory consignment impounded in Thailand last month.

President Uhuru Kenyatta now wants investigations to go deeper and weed out any government officials found to have colluded with the smugglers.

“We want to know and I will not stop until we find out, who is the customs officer, the Kenya Ports Authority officer, all those officers who were in that line must be prosecuted,” said President Kenyatta.

Over the last one month, two consignments of wildlife trophies, weighing a total of six tonnes, smuggled through Kenya, have been seized in Thailand and Singapore.

In April, officials in Thailand seized 511 pieces of ivory weighing three tonnes, which were in containers marked “tea leaves” and headed to Lagos from Mombasa.

Last month, customs officials in Singapore seized a bigger consignment of 3.7 tonnes which included 1,783 pieces of ivory tusks, 4 rhino horns and 22 teeth belonging to wild cats.

“And you will see that it is starting to happen. We are not going to let it go that easy. I will personally follow up and the person who was involved in that consignment must equally be accountable, we must begin to take responsibility,” added the President.

The president launched the Public Sector Remuneration and Benefits Policy and Job Evaluation exercise that aims to match civil servants pay to productivity.

The constipated public service wage bill has been worsened in the last three years, growing by almost 30 percent and eating into GDP growth.