The government has never released any money to buy land for people evicted from Mau Forest, Lands minister James Orengo said yesterday.He said his ministry had received Sh2.9 billion in the last two years specifically for internally displaced people from the 2008 post-election violence and not former forest settlers. “This is contrary to the many statements that have been made by a section of political leadership that the ministry of Lands is sitting on funds released for the resettlement of the Mau Forest evictees,” said Orengo in a statement.
Orengo was responding to claims by politicians including Roads minister Franklin Bett that the ministry was “sitting” on funds meant for Mau IDPs. Rift Valley MPs have claimed that the government released Sh3.6 billion for the Mau IDPs. Orengo has refuted the claims many times.
Yesterday, he further refuted claims that his ministry had bought 4,000 acres but had refused to settle people evicted from the forest. Orengo said he wrote to the President and the Prime Minister last year requesting for money to settle people evicted from the forest.
He said he gave the head of public service Francis Muthaura a budget of Sh3.5 billion in November but had not received the money to date. The evictions in 2009 were aimed at reclaiming the degraded Mau complex, Kenya’s largest water tower.
So far, 24,000 hectares of the forest’s 400,000 hectares have been reclaimed affecting 2,900 families, according to the Mau Forest Restoration Interim Coordinating Secretariat.
Many of these families are living in roadside camps as they claim they have no other land to go to. Orengo said the ministry will seek money to buy land for all IDPs including those evicted from Embobut forest.
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