Hue and cry over Tana sugar project

• Nature Kenya says the project will have significant negative environmental, economic and social impacts whose mitigation will be difficult and complicated .
• Pastoralists are against a plan to move them to the 200,000-acre tsetse fly-infested Galana ranch and feel the project is being forced on them.
• NGOs and community groups in the area claim the proposed site is government trust land.

According to Nema, phases II and III of the project, which are located in an area neighbouring pastoralists, will be developed in consultation with the local community, and based on the success of Phase One.

Efforts to get comments from Mumias Sugar CEO Evans Kidero failed.

He referred this writer to his corporate affairs manager, who asked for a questionnaire to guide their response. Persistent calls and follow-up had not yielded any fruit by the time we went to press.