Antics of a 48 year old woman who has been extorting money from her 3 brothers for 5 years on the pretext that her husband was jobless have finally come to an end.
The woman Beatrice Awinja (not her real name) ended up living lavishly from stipends from her brother’s weekly handouts which she drew simultaneously without their knowledge from 2014.
One of the brothers told KNA from Kayole estate in Nairobi County yesterday that their sister also took advantage of the jaundiced relationship between them and her husband to live beyond her means after the husband was interdicted from his civil service job where he had worked for 30 years.
During the interdiction period when an officer draws half salary from the government, the woman insisted that he was not providing any money for upkeep and it was for this reason that the brothers felt sympathetic and kept sending her money on a weekly basis not knowing that they were funding her to live more lavishly than they did.
The couple was even “blessed” with their fourth born at a time when the man was on interdiction to the surprise of family members who expressed shock at the delivery of the baby girl. She also lost her job a year later and this exacerbated the situation for the brothers as they were compelled to dig deeper into their pockets to supplement her.
The straw that broke the camel’s back was her attempt to seek accommodation at one of the brother’s house with her 4 children, 3 of them adults on the pretext that the landlord had locked up their house for non-payment of 80,000 rent arrears.
Three months earlier, one of the brothers had paid for her some 90,000 shillings as rent arrears to cushion them from being thrown out of the house despite the fact that the husband had been reinstated and paid handsomely but the trend of stipends did not change. This was the second house that the family has lost household items after it was locked for non-payment. They lived in a house worth 21,000 shillings rent and her 2 children attend a private school where fees is 20,000 per term per child. The first and second born have completed form four.
It was at this point that the brother’s ingenuity brought to an end her dirty tricks of soliciting money from them. He immediately called his 2 others brothers and they entered into an MOU to each host one child each and let her relocate back to the village with her youngest child in Western Kenya where they were to get her a job while she stayed with their mother.
She was even chauffeured to the village with a few clothing after a soul searching stay of 2 days within which she was given an ultimatum to either move out or agree to relocate to the village. The brother was even willing to book her with the children in a hotel on the 2nd night at whatever cost prior to travelling to the village where he was scheduled to attend a funeral of a close relative.
The brother said upon reaching the village, she was not helpful to the ailing mother as she was ever on phone communicating with her children is suspicious conversations from time to time as she orchestrated an excuse to return to the City in the sun.
After her stay for 3 weeks, she returned to Nairobi insisting that she had gotten a part-time job of relieving someone who was proceeding on maternity leave and was going to live with a friend.
No sooner had she stayed in Nairobi for a week than she reassembled her children from their uncles on the pretext that they were going to visit her at the friend’s house.
They now have no fixed abode but she has continued to send the brothers distress messages asking for money to bail out her household items from her former landlord. The trio have stuck to their guns that they will not give her any money following her uncouth behavior as they believe she has rejoined the husband who retired last year but still stays in Nairobi.
By Lydia Shiloya
