IDPs reject new ‘poorly’ constructed houses

By Lucas Ng’asike

KENYA: Internally Displaced Persons in Turkana County have rejected a move by the Government to resettle them.

The IDPs claimed that the resettlement had been dogged by alleged corrupt malpractices.

In a dramatic event in Lodwar, the IDPs sent back to Nairobi a task force on their resettlement on Thursday and forest evictees led by the chairman Joseph Irungu.

The chairman of the Kanamakemer IDPs Joshua Ebei said they declined to occupy the houses because the housing units were incomplete.

“We cannot occupy houses that are incomplete. The contractor has done a shoddy job. Let the Government honour its promises to ensure complete housing units in all IDP camps across the region,” Ebei said.

The task force, which toured the camps in Lodwar and other parts of the county to hand over the houses, had proposed a balloting plan for the resettlement.

But the plans hit a dead end after the IDPs declined to participate in the process and instead rejected the housing allocation plan.

Refused offer

The IDPs chairman who led the protest said out of the 610 housing units only 130 houses have been shoddily completed, adding that the remainder had not been started.

Mr Irungu said they have already suspended one of the contractors for failure to meet the standard requirements set as per the agreement.

He said the remaining houses may take time to be complete.

“We have requested them to own the houses through balloting process but they have refused to take the offer. Why are they sending us back to Nairobi? If they had wrangles before we came here, then that matter could have been solved by the local provincial administration,” Irungu said.

He said the housing units are expected to benefit 2,593 families.