Eyebrows raised over State’s failure to resettle all IDPs by March 19 deadline

The government’s commitment to resettle all internally displaced persons has been brought into question after it failed to meet its March 19 deadline.

Special Programmes permanent secretary Andrew Mondo said the government had set three months — December 19 last year to March 19 — as the period during which all the IDPs would have been resettled.

He spoke while visiting the displaced in Eldoret in January. 

“We have finalised all the plans of resettling them. The government and other development partners have given us enough funds to buy land and build houses for them before  March 19,” said Mr Mondo in January.

The PS said his ministry was given Sh4.2 billion for the programme and they had so far spent Sh3.1 billion.

He also said that the Lands ministry was given Sh2.9 billion and they had spent 50 per cent of it in buying land for those who have been resettled.

Tents are now in tatters, children cry because of hunger, while their despondent parents merely watch, uncertain of what the future has in store for them.

This is what characterises the life of IDPs at the Naka camp in Uasin Gishu County, who have been there for the past five years.

Mr Bedan Karanja, vice-chairman of the camp, said the government promised to buy them land that costs not more than Sh450,000.

Mr Karanja said with the amount, each household is meant to have two-and-a-quarter acres, which he noted is next to impossible considering that an acre costs more than Sh450,000 in most parts of North Rift.

“We have been looking for land in vain since the amount the government has allocated us is not enough to purchase even an acre of land,” Mr Karanja said. He said they were incurring more expenses moving around in search of land.

The camp’s secretary, Mr Simon Mwangi, wonders why the government has failed to deliver on its promise of resettling them.

“When the Special Programmes PS was here in January, he promised that we would be resettled within three months, which have so far elapsed, and we are not seeing any hope,” Mr Mwangi said. 

At the Yamumbi camp, the case is different. Some poll chaos victims staying there were told that their names had been removed from the list of IDPs.

The more than 20 families have been camping there for the past five years. “Our future is not clear. We might stay here forever unless the government recognises us as genuine IDPs,” Ms Milcah Wangare who lives at the camp, said. 

Ms Wangare said the only people who have been resettled so far are the ones evicted from their own farms during the poll chaos, while those who were renting houses have been left out.

At the same time, controversy surrounding the Chemusian Farm in Uasin Gishu, which was bought to resettle IDPs from Mau, has taken a new turn. Some of the committee members spearheading the resettlement are being accused of selling the land to other people.

In 2009, the Lands and the Special Programmes ministries bought the 1,040-acre farm to resettle IDPs, squatters and scores of former forest dwellers from parts of the North Rift region.

However, political interference, lack of a proper resettlement formula and poor vetting have greatly hampered distribution of the land. As a result, concerns have been raised over the process of vetting of beneficiaries.