By Juma Kwayera
A scorched earth strategy that The Treasury has adopted after the Government approved Sh3 billion funding for the resettlement of the Mau Forest evictees is a potential powder keg that threatens to throw the five-phased implementation programme further into disarray.
The third phase, expected to start in January, has kicked up a storm in Government, with key beneficiaries of the illegal excisions, including sitting Cabinet ministers, said to be digging in to defend their parcels of land.
The bruising battle over conservation of the country's largest water tower, which covers roughly over half a million hectares, was brought to the floor of Parliament again on Wednesday during heated debate on the fate of illegal settlers evicted from the forest last year.
The controversy in the House was echoed outside it with members of the Interim Co-ordination Secretariat of Mau resettlement saying they had come up against obstacles, the major one being a shoestring budget. After a lull lasting about one year, the matter is once again becoming a thorny political issue as the third phase of evictions gets underway in the Southwest Mau Forest next year.
The chairman of the Interim Co-ordinating Secretariat of Mau Forest complex, Mr Hassan Noor Hassan, told The Standard resistance to imminent evictions is building up. The third phase targets mainly the "big fish" with expansive plantations.
Mr Hassan, however, rules out compensation for illegal settlers by his team, as doing so would be going against a Government taskforce that recommended assisted relocation of the settlers, but without compensation.
"We were on course to accomplishing the task in a humane manner until politicians began interfering with the process. Transport was available and we had identified schools where students being relocated would attend. Most of the people in camps of the internally displaced people are from Mau Forest. But most of the IDPs are opportunity seekers — they are not genuine," he says.
The chairman says the third phase has taken long to commence to give his officers time to vet the settlers.
"So far we have been able to screen 5,000 names out of which 2,500 have genuine title deeds. The rest are forgeries and are, therefore, not entitled to compensation," says Hassan. The third phase will involve the eviction of approximately 7,000 settlers.
The controversy over funding took centre-stage in Parliament during Prime Minister's Question Time, when the PM, Raila Odinga, whose office is overseeing the rehabilitation of the water tower, said:
"The Government has instructed The Treasury to provide Sh3 billion to the Ministry of Lands for resettlement of those vacating the forest alongside other internally displaced persons in Phases II and III." The PM said the money would be used to resettle "about 2,800 people from southwestern Mau and about 7,800 families in the Maasai Mau Forest".
The controversy over funding has in the past been a source of bitter rift between the Office of Prime Minister and that of Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta. Last year, Uhuru clashed with the PM over funding of the resettlement programme, saying The Treasury had not set aside monies for the exercise that assumed a political dimension in Government.
In a Press statement, Uhuru said: "We at the Treasury and the Ministry of Forestry can categorically state that there has never been any discussion of any nature with any individual or company for compensation of any kind." In the absence of Government funding, MPs opposed to the eviction of illegal settlers held a fundraiser last November at Panafric Hotel, at which Sh5 million was collected. However, there are concerns that the money may have been embezzled by the same politicians as it yet to be passed on to the evictees living in camps.
Witch hunt
The Standard has been reliably informed that even as the PM affirmed to Parliament that Treasury would release money for the implementation of the third phase, the minister was still reluctant to loosen the purse strings. Asked if the minister would act on the Government's instructions, Mr David Murathe said it was not up to Uhuru to decide.
"If the Prime Minister said there is money, then he is the right person to respond to that question," Murathe said.
A UN official in Nairobi said the global organisation is keenly following the discourse on the Mau Forest rehabilitation. "We are aware the secretariat is deliberately being denied funds to frustrate it. We are aware ministers from communities that live in the complex have even tried to persuade the co-ordinating officers to kick other communities out of the forest and leave people from their own. But the team has been professional, non-partisan, patient and careful not to fall in the politicians' traps," said the officer, who declined to be named for he has no authority to issue a statement of behalf of the UN.
The official said the rehabilitation process should be guided by the new Constitution, which, while it recognises the right to property, gives the State powers to reclaim illegally acquired public property without compensation. In his contribution, Narok South MP Nkoidila ole Lankas sided with the secretariat on compensation of genuine settlers only.
"There are those with genuine claims and I think those are the people Government is trying to compensate. There are land operators, charcoal burners and other idlers who are staying in the forest in the hope that they will benefit some day. I am requesting the Government to take action on this group of people because they are cutting down trees every day," Lankas told the House.
Source: The Standard | Online Edition
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