Purchase of land for Mau evictees' resettlement approved

By Peter Mutai

Families evicted from Mau forest by the Government three years ago have a reason to smile after the cabinet approved the purchase of 5,500 acres of land in Nakuru and Kericho counties to resettle them.

During a meeting held at State House - Nairobi and chaired by President Kibaki, the cabinet authorised the Ministry of Lands to fast track the process of acquiring the identified parcels of land to resettle the evictees.

Roads Minister Franklin Bett said the process of acquiring land to resettle the evictees had been bogged down by failure by the Government and land owners to agree on the selling price per acre of land they were willing to sell for the exercise.

Bett who is the chairman of the ad hoc committee formed by Prime Minister Raila Odinga to spear head the resettlement programme said the Government had valued parcels much lower than the market price demanded by land owners. The identified owners therefore could not agree to sell their land for less.

"The Government was subjecting the process of buying land for Mau evictees to rigorous bureaucracy unlike in the case of the Internally Displaced Persons displaced from their farms by the 2007 post-election violence," he added.

He said that the Government was using the bureaucracy as a threshold in the resettlement of Mau evictees unlike for the case of IDPs whom he said were being favoured by the Ministries of Land and that of Special Programmes.

Bett who is the Bureti MP made the remarks on Saturday while addressing a delegation of leaders and elders from Narok South who visited him at his Kericho home.

Other members of the ad hoc committee include assistant ministers Beatrice Kones (Home Affairs) and Magerer Langat (Energy), Sotik MP Joyce Laboso and former Baringo Central MP and Kanu national vice chairman Gideon Moi.

Bett thanked the President, the premier and the cabinet for intervening in the matter saying the more than 5,000 families who are camping in make shift camps by the roadside at the edge of South Western Mau forest have suffered for too long.

In September 2011, the Ministry of Lands placed an advertisement in the local dailies for the purchase of arable land for the resettlement of the families kicked out the forest to pave way for the rehabilitation of country’s biggest water tower.

The advertisement had called on individuals with 30 acres and above of arable land in Kericho, Nakuru and Bomet Counties willing to sell their land to the Government for the exercise to write to the ministry not later than 12th Wednesday, October 2011.

Bett said the ad hoc committee had identified several blocks of land with various sizes to be purchased by the Government for the evictees within Nakuru and Kericho Counties which have been assessed by the Ministry of Agriculture for their suitability.

The minister said it was sad to see the affected families languishing in tattered tents and yet they obeyed the Government directives to move out of the forest voluntarily in the hope that they will be given an alternative land to settle on.