“Given that we are the port of entry in East Africa, and we see a lot of ivory going out of the Mombasa port, it means there is corruption at the border points of these countries,” she says. Gitari notes the port of Mombasa is a major conduit in and out of Africa, and has played a vital role in moving ivory and rhino horns from the country to Asia and other destinations. Securing Kenya’s wildlife – dead or alive – is a challenge because of the country’s porous borders and coast. “Kenya will put in place strong systems to enhance security and management of Kenya’s trophy stockpile,” she told journalists at a press conference in Nairobi last October. Environment Cabinet Secretary Judi Wakhungu says the audit showed KWS’ storage systems are robust and will be strengthened further.

In 2015, it conducted Kenya’s first-ever comprehensive inventory of national ivory stockpiles, counting 137 tons of elephant ivory and 1.5 tons of rhino horn. “The price of paying a prosecutor or court clerk, for instance, is lower than bribing a magistrate or a judge” But KWS rejects claims that public officials are colluding with traffickers. No signs of forced entry suggest theft or complicity by an insider. Local media have reported several rhino horns disappeared from various storerooms managed by the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) in recent years. “The price of paying a prosecutor or court clerk, for instance, is lower than bribing a magistrate or a judge,” Gitari says.Įven people paid to protect Kenya’s wildlife have been accused of being complicit in poaching. She says some cases against poachers have been compromised by defective charge sheets, which she suggests may be a deliberate effort by lower level officials to ensure the cases are not heard. And, in some cases, corruption hides behind incompetence, according to Elizabeth Gitari, a legal officer at Wildlife Direct in Kenya.

The cartels operate on the basis of “take the money or the bullet,” causing many officials to turn a blind eye to their activities.įavors or power may be traded in addition to money.

Secretive criminal syndicates pay off police, judges and customs officials to keep their lucrative trade moving.

Kenya, South Africa and Tanzania are waging a war on poaching, but one of the greatest challenges to winning it is corruption among the people fighting it.

Eclipse Child by Kirsten A. Everett