Kipkurere forest evictees won’t be resettled yet

By Michael Ollinga

Eldoret, Kenya: The High Court in Eldoret has extended interim orders barring the Ministry of Devolution and Planning from compensating a section of Kipkurere forest evictees in a disputed list to February 6.

Justice Sila Munyao issued the orders before a packed courtroom on grounds that the list being used by the devolution ministry for resettlement needs to be scrutinised to ascertain if it has names of all genuine evictees.

While issuing the order, Munyao considered that the government would stand to lose billions of shillings to imposters, if it comes out that the list being used for the resettlement doesn’t have the names of genuine evictees.

Over 1,900 forest evictees from Kipkurere forest had moved to Eldoret High court last year to dispute a list developed by local leaders and presented to the special programmes ministry, saying that it had left out the names of genuine evictees.

The case was however dismissed by the court because the petitioners were not in a position to produce the list they were disputing. This was because the local leaders declined to give them access to the list handed to the ministry.

The list was later given to the petitioners by the Attorney General (AG) on December 6, 2013 via application 491 of 2013 and they moved to file the suit at the Milimani lands and environment court in Nairobi.

Urgency

Munyao was attending to the case under the certificate of urgency issued by Justice Isaac Lenaola who was sitting at the Milimani court on December 19, 2013.

The matter was mentioned at the Eldoret High Court on January 2 and its hearing was slated for January 24, 2014.

The petitioners’ counsel Eliab Melly told the court that the urgency of the matter was on grounds that the devolution ministry was on an advanced stage of compensating the individuals on the list.

“The payments have not been made to the individuals on the said list but the beneficiaries were told to check their accounts for the Sh400,000 today,” Melly told the court.

The petitioners were following on orders vide the December 19, 2013 application to restrain the cabinet secretary from continuing with the compensation of selected Kipkurere evictee in a list they were excluded from.

While issuing the orders Justice Munyao stated that the applicants are genuine forest dwellers though he was not in a position to ascertain if the list presented to the government was genuine.

“I consider it wise to order the ministry of devolution and any other government agency to restrain from making any payments to the tendered list pending the hearing by the inter-parties to the suit,” he said.

He added that the individuals in the tendered list are just but interested parties to the proceedings of the case thus need to be made aware.

He further directed the petitioners to place an advert that the suit has been filed via two major dailies to make the individuals in the said list appoint representatives for interparty hearing of the matter.

The petitioners’ chairperson Jackson Agui who is the main party in the case alongside 1941 others expressed his contentment for the extended order, saying that it will help them not to miss out on the resettlement plan.