RAILA

The government will compensate all settlers in the Mau forest complex with less than ten acres of land regardless the legitimacy of their title holdings, Prime Minister Raila Odinga has said.

He said due the circumstances under which some peasants acquired land on willing buyer and seller basis, considerations would taken to ensure the interest all parties in the Mau fiasco were taken into account.

Odinga said an audit of those within the forest cover was set to be undertaken to ascertain genuine recipients of the compensation programme which may include a resettlement scheme to ensure that the exercise was conducted in a humane manner.

"The government wants to conserve the eco system but we have to partner towards this venture with the communities so that we arrive at a consensus on which way forward to avert irreparable damage to our water catchment area" he said

The premier told rallies in Siongiroi in Bomet and Sogoo in Narok South districts respectively that influential personalities who allegedly grabbed large tracts of land in the catchment area were not likely to be considered for compensation.

He assured residents in the affected areas that the government wanted to amicably resolve the issue so that communities within the complex were actively involved in conservation efforts when the demarcation of the forest land was finalized.

"Those settler with between five and ten acres of land will be considered for compensation after the vetting of those within the Mau complex is concluded because we have realized that they unknowingly bought their parcel from the grabbers" Odinga said.

He however censored section of politicians from the region for playing dirty tricks over government efforts to restore the complex claiming majority of those critical of the exercise were the beneficiary of illegal allocation in the forest land.

The premier said the leaders who were against the government's effort to conserve the forest were beneficiaries of the forest and told the claimants to be wary of their motives which he insisted was not in good faith.

Odinga added that the issue of the conservation of the forest, the biggest water tower in the country should be de-linked from politics and told off the leaders critic of the exercise to shun retrogressive rhetoric over the issue.

He said the government will formulate a conservation Authority to oversee the restoration and protection of the five water towers in the country to ensure that the eco system was preserved for posterity of future generations.

He premier told resident that a task force may soon be dispatched to surveyors to demarcate forest land from the former group ranches amid complaints from resident that their ancestral land was erroneously put under the Mau conservancy zone.

" The cabinet has already approved the task force report which will be submitted to parliament this for adoption before we formulate a task force to vet the settlers and establish the boundaries and ascertain the actual number of those within the complex" Odinga said.

Among those present during the Premier's whirlwind tour of the South Rift were cabinet Ministers James Orengo, Paula Otuoma and MPs Nkoidila Lankas and nominated MP Musa Sirma among other communal leaders.