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.

Controversy continues to dog Mumias Sugar even after the State’s environment watchdog gave it the licence to embark on a multibillion-shiling project in the Tana Delta.

Area residents and civil society groups are concerned that various issues arising from an environmental impact assessment study of the project are being ignored, and in recent days, they have mounted spirited protests against the project.

National Environment Management Authority (Nema) director-general Muusya Mwinzi has confirmed granting a conditional licence to the sugar firm to embark on Phase One of the project amid demonstrations by local pastoralists, who want the project halted.

Benefit locals

Environmentalists, too, have joined the fray, with Nature Kenya challenging Tana and Athi Rivers Development Authority (Tarda) and Mumias Sugar — the co-owners of the project — “to take the brilliant opportunity to create a truly ‘Green’ development by supporting the gazettement and management of large parts of the delta as conservation areas, and tailoring development activities to small schemes that will directly benefit the local people, and maintain the hydrological and ecological integrity of one of Kenya’s most important natural assets.”

Recently, residents expressed their frustration over the apparent disregard of their views on the Sh24 billion project and demonstrated against Regional Development minister Fred Gumo, who was touring the area to drum up support for the Tana Integrated Sugar Project (Tisp).

A news report published in the Nation (July 9) quoted Mr Gumo as criticising the pastoralists, who have been the most vocal, for opposing the project.
In the same report, Medical Services assistant minister Danson Mungatana blamed opposition to the project on “political influence”.

His remarks were in apparent response to a nominated councillor, Mr Abaloni Racha, who had accused the Garsen MP of sidelining pastoralists during awareness campaigns about the project.

Doubts sincerity

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.

In the recent protests, the Nation quoted former ambassador Hussein Dadho as saying: “The community doubts the sincerity of the Government, Mumias Sugar and Tarda and the way the project is being brought here.”

He called for “binding agreements between the community and the company”.

A community leader, Dr Mohammed Bute, said the pastoralists were victims of historical injustices and would not allow the project to go on.

It is instructive that even as Mr Mungatana blamed politics for pastoralists’ opposition to the project, he was also reported to have insisted that the Government “addresses the concerns raised by those opposing the project”.

Tana River county council chairman Salim Kolo had complained that the pastoralists were not involved in the project.