December 31st, 2012
The Cabinet will decide how to resettle more than 10,000 IDP families and other evictees before the elections. With only two months to the polls, Head of Civil Service Francis Kimemia has said the government will make a decision on how to get land for their resettlement.
The government is considering to use part of its land owned by ministries and parastatals to resettle the families which include those evicted from Mau and Embobut forests.
The Ministry of Agriculture through its Agricultural Development Corporation (ADC) owns huge tracts of land, mostly in Rift Valley, which may be used for the resettlement if the government will not be able to get alternative land.
Last week, Kimemia visited IDPs who have been resettled in Uasin Gishu and Njoro where he said the government was finding it hard to get adequate land for the families to get new homes.
The government has so far spent more than Sh11 billion on the resettlement of some of the families, mostly IDPs who were victims of the post-election violence.
Most of those yet to be resettled include more than 3,000 families among those removed from the Mau forest three years ago and another 4,000 families evicted from the Embobut and Kipkurere forests in Marakwet and Nandi respectively.
Yesterday, a leader of the forest evictees in Marakwet Paul Kisang said they are now hoping that the government will determine their fate by January.
“We have lived in the cold for more than three years. Some of our children and the aged have died because of this situation we are in and our hope is that this suffering will come to end before the elections,” said Kisang.
Government’s plans to buy land in parts of Rift Valley for the resettlement have not been successful because of high costs involved and the shortage of such land. “All we want are new homes because we may be forgotten if we are not given land before the elections,” said Kisang.
Source: All Africa
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