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Raila Odinga Wednesday said squatters evicted from the country’s water towers would be employed to replant trees and raise money to sustain themselves.

At a meeting with professionals from Keiyo and Marakwet who paid him a courtesy call, the PM said the government will unveil a programme that will give priority to those leaving the forests in restoring them.

Reforestation, the PM said, needs a lot of labour and the government will deploy those leaving the forests and pay them to do the work.

The Keiyo and Marakwet professionals were led by ambassador Simon arap Bullut and former Governor of the Central Bank of Kenya Mr Micah Cheserem.

They petitioned the Prime Minister to initiate the restoration of forests in and around the Keiyo Valley and decried “the current pathetic state of the roads and destruction of forests in the two districts."

The delegation said the area is getting prone to landslides due to degradation of Katanga, Kikuyus, Kereru, Embobut, Kapchemutwa and other forests in and around escarpments in Keiyo and Marakwet.

Mr Bullut, who read the petition by delegation, called for enhanced surveillance of the water towers that serve Keiyo, Marakwet, Trans Nzoia, Pokot and Uashin Gishu.

He said they are worried that Chebara dam, the main source of water for Eldoret and the proposed Arror dam are threatened by deforestation in the area.

“The Marakwet, the Keiyo and the Kalenjin in general are forest people. As a community, we conserved forests. The idea of invading forests and cutting them is new to us but it is going on and it worries us,” Mr Bullut said.

He asked the PM to tour the region and address the community on the need to conserve the forests.

The leaders also asked the government to tarmac the Nyaru-Iten-Kapsowar and Chesoi-Chesongoch roads to open up the area.

Mr Odinga said locals would be the greatest beneficiaries of the conservation work going on in the country’s water towers.

He said a healthy environment would ensure rivers in the Kerio Valley have enough water that could be used to irrigate the land for agriculture.

The PM said the escarpments in the Rift Valley are full of many scenic views that would attract tourists if other amenities like electricity and roads were provided.

“As we expand to take development to the regions, it would help if the rivers here were running at full volume. The escarpments in Keiyo and Marakwet have rivers that can generate electricity if they were flowing at full volume. But they can only run full volume if the forests are protected. That is all that we are trying to do,” the PM said.

He said the escarpments around Keiyo could provide high altitude training facilities for local athletes if the area had good roads and a reliable supply of electricity.

The PM said he will work with the community to restore the forests and will initiate the reforestation soon.