Govt starts resettling evictees

The Kenya Government has started resettling people evicted from forests in Rift Valley and Western provinces with Lands minister James Orengo opening bids to buy land for the evictees.

Mr Orengo said those to benefit from the land to be purchased by the government are people evicted from Mau and Embobut forests.

The minister denied that the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) was using resettlement issues in Rift Valley as a campaign gimmick.

“Politicising the issue will not help because we need to move pragmatically to avoid mistakes in future,” the minister said at Ardhi House, Nairobi Wednesday evening.  

Mr Orengo said government processes take longer than what Kenyans expect because they have to get funding from Treasury.

Genuine land

He said they had received Sh1 billion two months ago to settle various forest evictees from the country and they expect to complete the programme before next year’s election.

Mr Orengo said resettling such people is not a simple process because it involves talking with the host community, establishing if the land is genuine among other things.

“After acquiring the land, we have to survey it, plan, before balloting is carried out for people to get various parts of the pieces of land,” he said.

Mr Orengo, who was accompanied by East Africa Community minister Musa Sirma, said the environment surrounding various forests where people had been evicted had improved.

“Water in rivers have become cleaner while its levels have risen up restoring the former glory of the bodies,” the Lands minister said.

Mr Orengo said they had identified 1,006 acres of land in Kipkabus area of Uasin Gishu County at a cost of Sh118 million to settle Embobut evictees.

He said the families who had been evicted from the forests had to be vetted also to establish the exact number of evictees which could not be done overnight.

Suffer in the cold

Mr Sirma said the committee that had been appointed to handle the settlement of Mau evictees should be given time to carry out its work without interference.

He said to make the process transparent, 10 representatives from the 10 blocks that had been evicted from Mau had been invited to oversee the resettlement exercise.

“As my colleague has said, politics has to be kept out of this process so that these people who are suffering in the cold can be resettled,” Mr Sirma said.

Forest evictions in Rift Valley has been a hot issue pitting the rebellious Eldoret North MP wing of William Ruto in ODM and that of Prime Minister Raila Odinga. While Mr Ruto opposed the evictions, the PM supported it saying the environment needed to be protected.

The issue led to the fall out of the two forcing Mr Ruto to join United Democratic Movement party but received a big blow when he was dropped from the Cabinet by Mr Odinga.