Rape of forest goes on as more dig in

• Country waiting to see how secretariat navigates through politics of eviction

“We met the secretariat as Rift Valley MPs last week. Once the boundaries have been marked, then those who will have been found to be squatting on government forest should be given land elsewhere as it is the government’s responsibility to settle its own people,” the MP said.

This push and pull on Mau has been going on for some time with the matter generating much heat and little action.

Nearly two years after efforts were renewed to save the water tower, politics has taken centre stage and little action seems to be taking place. True, there was the task force formed by Prime Minister Raila Odinga to look into the saga and make recommendations.

Following heated politics that soured relations between Rift Valley MPs on the one hand and their party leader Mr Odinga on the other, the report by the task force was passed, albeit with changes. The government, according to the report, is now bound to compensate all settlers.

Now with the Hassan Noor-led secretariat in place, the country is waiting to see how it navigates the muddied Mau waters.