Mau: Ntimama claims on Moi dismissed
What you need to know:
- The Kiptagich Tea Factory owned partly by Mr Moi is located on the controversial land.
The chairman of a local authorities' group has dismissed claims that former President Moi forced the Narok County Council to allocate him land in the Mau water tower.
The national chairman of the Association of Local Government Authorities of Kenya, Mr Ntaraiya Ole Kores, said “the talk of issuing land under duress” was a “convenient political statement” from National Heritage minister William Ole Ntimama.
Mr Kores, also the chairman of Olkejuado County Council said, if the minister was arm-twisted as he claimed, then it was wrong for him to have waited for eight years to bring the injustice to light.
“Why did Mr Ntimama have to wait for the former president to speak out, before saying that the land was obtained fraudulently?” he posed.
The local authorities boss Tuesday read political mischief and accused Mr Ntimama of complicity in the destruction of the forest.
“He ought to have apologised for dishing out prime forest land for personal political gain,” Mr Kores said.
He supported the view of his Narok counterpart that Mr Ntimama gave out the 900-acre parcel of land to gain political favours from Mr Moi.
The Kiptagich Tea Factory owned partly by Mr Moi is located on the controversial land.
On Monday, Narok County Council chairman Solomon ole Moriasi rubbished Mr Ntimama’s excuse when he ‘donated’ land saying it was all about political supremacy in Maasailand.
Mr Kores said the land was given out at a time when Mr Ntimama was striving to oust Justus Ole Tipis from the leadership of the Maasai community.
Mr Ntimama and Mr Ole Tipis had been fighting for local supremacy in the then hotly contested Kanu elections.
At the time, Mr Ntimama was the chairman of the Narok County Council, the entity that owns the controversial parcel.
But, Mr Ntimama has maintained that he was coerced to give out the piece of land to the then powerful Head of State. He asked Mr Moi to surrender the piece of land, citing fear for his failure to stand up to the then autocratic regime.
It is not clear whether the land was dished out when Mr Moi was still a vice president and a Kanu powerbroker in the Rift Valley or if it was “donated” after he assumed presidency in 1978 after the death of the first President Jomo Kenyatta. But one thing is evident; that the parcel was never paid for.
Mr Moi has since maintained that he never used his position as President to obtain the piece of land nor his influence to grab any piece of land.
The back and forth between politicians on the land-grabbing scandals and what Forestry minister Noah Wekesa has termed “government mistake” has derailed the rehabilitation of the crucial water tower.
The issue of compensation for the people who were allocated land in the forest has also raised emotion with the Cabinet expected to approve a Sh8.7 billion compensation kitty.
