Governors Cleophas Lagat, Jack Ranguma form joint team to check border security

By Dennis Onyango and Maureen Odiwuor

Kenya: Kisumu and Nandi county governments have established measures to ensure lasting peace at the Kericho-Nyakach border.

The two county administrations have formed a joint peace committee with members drawn from the two regions to spearhead the peace efforts.

Speaking in Kisumu during a training forum for Nandi Sub County and ward administrators, Nandi governor Cleophas Lagat said the peace committee will address thorny issues leading to the border conflicts.

Alongside his Kisumu counterpart Jack Ranguma, Dr Lagat said they have laid down strategies aimed at ensuring harmony between the neighbouring communities.

The joint peace committee will probe the cattle rustling menace that results into perennial clashes at the volatile border.

“We have learnt that there are so many squatters living at the border following the clashes. We have agreed with Ranguma to determine their number and work on how to resettle them,” he said.

Security organs

As a measure to curb cattle rustling, the two counties, in partnership with security organs, are set to begin a crackdown of butcheries where the stolen cattle are slaughtered.

“The meat trade is facilitated by businessmen from the two counties. We must find out who they are and where they slaughter the cattle,” he said.

Lagat said they are working with security officers to help the probe to tame the menace.

“The conflicts affect residents from both counties. We have therefore decided to give it a joint approach to end it permanently,” he said.

The recent clashes that occurred last month led to the killing of six people and left more than 900 others displaced. Five houses were also torched in the conflicts.

So serious was the problem that the Parliamentary Committee on Security visited the site and vowed to carry out investigations on the cattle rustling menace.

Brotherly love

Ranguma has said his administration will not relent until security is enhanced at the border.

“Locals live in fear of being attacked and their cattle stolen. We must restore harmony that once existed between the two communities,” he said.

He even appealed to the deputy President William Ruto during his recent fund-raiser in the region to intervene and help end the perpetual clashes.

“We need to rebuild the brotherly love that once existed between the two communities. The sanctity of life should be restored at the border so that we do not witness such clashes again,” he said.

Last week, the Interior ministry Principal Secretary Mutea Iringo directed security officers to spearhead a crackdown on cattle rustlers to restore peace in the region. Meanwhile over 121 nurses under the Economic Stimulus Programme (ESP) in Kisumu are to be absorbed by the county government.

Kisumu County Director of Medical Services Dr Ojwang Lusi said they are working on modalities to absorb the nurses.

Without contracts

Those who have been working under the programme were contracted by the national government and 20 of them posted in every constituency. Some nurses under this programme have been without contracts since July last year, some ended in January while majority of them will expire in May this year.

“We are aware of what they are going through but they should not be worried. We are going to absorb them,” he said.

Of the 121, about ten of them say they have not received their salaries since January. According to the Kenya Nurses Union (KNUN) Kisumu County Secretary Maurice Opetu, six of the ten received between Sh6,000 to 16,000 in their account last month without any explanation.