Keep off Mau, Raila tells Moi

• Prime Minister Raila Odinga accuses former President Moi of interfering in plans to conserve Mau forest and warns him to stay away
  

Kenya's Prime Minister Raila Odinga on Saturday accused former President Moi of interfering with government plans to conserve the Mau Forest and urged him to keep off.

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Mr Odinga said that what the government was doing was to try and correct mistakes committed by the former government under Mr Moi which led to the destruction of the forest.

“We are trying to rectify problems that the former President created and he should stop interfering with what we are doing to conserve the Mau. We want to conserve the Mau for posterity and the former President should stop interfering in efforts we are undertaking to that effect,” Mr Odinga said in Shinyalu while on the campaign trail for the ODM candidate. “We are cleaning up after the mess he left.”

The PM’s statement could be seen as underlining the government’s seriousness about evicting illegal settlers in the Mau complex if they defy an order to leave the water catchment.

A contingent of security officers is being put together to enforce the directive. Any doubts that the removal of the illegal settlers will start sooner rather than later were dispelled on Friday by Prime Minister Raila Odinga at a rally in Kisii where he termed the decision “irreversible”.

Before the PM spoke, sources close to his office told the Sunday Nation that teams of General Service Unit, Administration Police and Forest Service rangers were being put together to carry out the evictions in case the settlers refuse to leave the forest.

Their instructions are to ensure the orders the government gives are followed. But the farmers will be allowed to harvest but not to replant their farms.

The PM said he was putting together an inter-ministerial task force to oversee the Mau rehabilitation and that its work could start as early as this week.

“The structure is not in place yet. It is likely to be firmed up in the next Cabinet meeting (Thursday),” said a government official familiar with the workings of the Mr Odinga’s office but who can’t be named because he is not authorised to speak for the PM. “The ministries of Lands, Forestry, Finance, Tourism, Internal Security, Wildlife, Special Programmes and Agriculture will be represented. UNEP too,” the official said.

Stands out

The inclusion of the Internal Security ministry suggests eviction using the law enforcement machinery is being taken into account.

The Ministry of Agriculture also stands out in that the minister, William Ruto, has led a section of MPs from Rift Valley in demanding compensation for the Mau settlers before relocation.

An indicator that matters had taken a new level came when a press conference Forestry minister Noah Wekesa had called on the Mau issue on Thursday was abruptly cancelled.

For some months now, the minister had been struggling to assume the lead role in the increasingly charged Mau issue to no avail. In any case, the President made it plain last week that the Mau docket was firmly with the Prime Minister.

Though it seemed not to have been immediately apparent to Mr Wekesa, Mau was no longer just a forestry concern but had taken much bigger inter-governmental dimensions.