Mau settlers likely to stay put as ultimatum is issued

An ultimatum issued by Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s remaining loyalists in the Rift Valley made the government shelve planned evictions from the Mau complex.

Roads minister Franklin Bett and assistant ministers Beatrice Kones and Magerer Lang’at last May gave the PM until the end of the July to settle the Mau evictees elsewhere or else they would reconsider their political support.

The leaders, who met at Bett’s Samburet farm in Kericho county, vowed to push the State to give the Mau settlers alternative land.

“It is disappointing to note that the government has spent Sh13 billion to resettle IDPs whereas it has allocated a paltry Sh1 billion for the Mau evictees,” Mr Lang’at said.

He noted that some of the Mau settlers had genuine title deeds to the land from which they had been evicted.

This position was a departure from the past when they had given the PM their unconditional support. Sources say the MPs feared the Mau issue would hurt their campaigns if it was not resolved well ahead of the elections.

Two weeks ago the government gave the clearest indication ,yet that settlers in the country’s biggest water tower may mot be removed after all, casting doubts about the conservation of the forest whose destruction would spell doom for livelihoods of millions of people and animals.

The chairman of the Mau coordinating secretariat Hassan Noor Hassan said they were looking for alternative ways to conserve the complex, reflecting the State’s dilemma.

“It is not feasible to remove everybody from the forest; we have not even resettled all the families that were evicted so we are saying that evictions are not the only solution. We are considering other options,” Mr Hassan told a press conference.

He denied reports that the team was targeting a tea estate associated with retired President Daniel arap Moi.

Media reports had indicated that the secretariat was going to repossess the multibillion-shilling Kiptagich Tea Estate in the fourth phase of its campaign to restore the water tower.

“The issue has never been addressed by us at any time,” he said. A source in the secretariat, who requested not to be named as he is not authorised to speak for the team, said the ultimatum by MPs allied to Mr Odinga was the straw that broke the camel’s back. “The temperatures had risen too high,” the source said.

Indications that the government may not after all carry out evictions in sections of the forest settled by rich landowners emerged last August when, in an interesting turn of events, Mr Odinga appointed Mr Moi’s son, Gideon, to chair a resettlement committee.

The complex has turned into a theatre of vicious political wars with any attempt to remove settlers meeting stiff resistance.