The government supports the inclusion of death or injury sustained from sharks, whales, stonefish, and sting rays compensation in 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.
Legislators 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 urged MPs to increase the budgetary allocation to resource the compensation process sufficiently.
“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. We can only ask parliament to increase the budget allocated to compensation claims arising from wildlife attacks.”
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Museiya asked lawmakers to create a comprehensive regulatory framework as the lack of one may result in a spike in compensation claims.
The PS emphasized the need to "determine the threshold of a compensable claim" and noted that the ideal framework would attempt to compensate those who exercised reasonable caution but nonetheless experienced loss and harm despite their efforts.
“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),” he said.
To reduce compensation claims, which were expected to total Kes 2.6 billion in the year leading up to June 2023, the State campaigned for the modification in 2019 that excluded bites from marine animals and snakes from the payout schedule.
The committee's chair, Maara MP Kareke Mbiuki, questioned whether the committee's support for enhancing the pay schedule was conditional on the legislature raising 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.
