By Judy Ogutu
The Standard
Feb. 08, 2012

A Government decision to cancel the last census results for eight districts has been quashed.

High Court Judge, Justice Mohamed Warsame, ruled on Tuesday that to allow Planning Minister Wycliffe Oparanya to cancel the results would be detrimental to the affected districts.

"He (Oparanya) crossed the boundary and must be shown the red card for exceeding the limits of his powers. The same amounts to an illegality. The respondent cannot be allowed to frustrate expectations of the inhabitants of the eight districts," the judge said.

The affected districts were Lagdera, Mandera East, Mandera Central, Mandera West, Wajir East, Turkana North, Turkana South and Turkana Central.

"There is nothing to suggest the minister had power to cancel results of eight districts; there is no direct or secondary evidence to support cancellation of the census results," Warsame declared.

The judge said such a decision should have been based within the confines of the law, adding that the minister acted in excess of jurisdiction and without authority.

Warsame was delivering a ruling on an application lodged by leaders from the affected regions who were seeking orders quashing the minister’s decision to cancel the results and stop the State from publishing them in a gazette notice. Also sought for was an order barring those sued from acting on the census data.

Ulterior motive

Apart from Oparanya, they had also sued the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) and the defunct Interim Independent Boundaries Review Commission.

In response, the State had said there was no ulterior motive in cancelling the census results.

KNBS Director General Anthony Kilele said the growth rate in those areas was higher than what documented dynamics would support, adding that population dynamics such as death and birth rates, and migration tides were inconsistent with data obtained for the rest of the country.

In a sworn statement, Kilele said the bureau was willing to further assess the enumerated data.

Source: The Standard

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