Farmers’ guests overstay welcome

By Vitalis Kimutai

When a platoon of paramilitary officers moved to occupy a piece of land belonging to a farmers’ organisation in the North Rift region in 2008, they were welcomed with joy.

The country was still smarting from the post-election violence and the farmers were excited to have armed officers in their midst. After all, the 60 officers from the Anti–Stock Theft Unit (ASTU) were to occupy the one-acre land for only a short period as they quelled the violence sparked by the disputed General Election.

Two years on, the once cordial relationship between the officers and the farmers has turned sour and grown tense.

No formal agreement

The farmers want back their land but the security men do not want to hear any of that. They are not willing to vacate the building that the farmers had been using.

Kesses Division Farmers Federation buildings in Wareng District. Farmers claim their expansion plans have been shelved due to continued police occupation

Members of the giant Kesses Division Farmers Marketing Federation at Cheptiret trading centre in Wareng District are demanding that the officers vacate the land they have illegally been occupying for the last two years.

The Federation members also want to be paid over Sh 1.2 million, as lease by the police although they had no formal agreement between them and the police.

Farmers further claim previous efforts by the officials to seek intervention of former Police Commissioner Hussein Ali and his successor Mathew Iteere have failed.

Provincial administrators in the area are said to have allowed the police department to use the land as an operations base during post-polls chaos but are not willing to move them out.

Cheptiret was one of the hot spots in post-poll violence in the North Rift region and the presence of the policemen was a huge deterrence.

The farmers’ federation chairman Julius Rotich claims his members had lost Sh 8 million as a result of the "illegal" occupation of the land by the officers in the last two years.

Financial Link

"There are 180 self-help groups in the Federation with 4,800 active members drawn from Eldoret South and Eldoret East constituencies," Rotich told The Standard.

The Kesses Division Farmers Marketing Federation was registered on May, 19, 2005 and its core business, Rotich said, was marketing farm produce, especially cereals for its members, besides acting as the link between financiers.

"We have been using the facility to store up to 70,000 bags of farmers’ harvest before sale but we have not been able to do so in the past two years because of the presence of the officers," the Federation secretary Mike Maswai said.

Maize Mill

Farmers are now demanding compensation from the Government because of lost business opportunities.

Rotich said the police presence on the plot had frustrated their plans to build go-downs on the land to help store their produce.

"We were also in the process of identifying a donor to partner with us in putting up a maize milling plant on the plot before the police moved in," Rotich elaborated. He said there were also plans to start a dairy plant on the plot to package milk and its by products and sell to local markets.

"All our plans have now been frustrated by the police department," Rotich lamented, adding: "Initially, when we demanded to know how long the officers would occupy the land, we were told it would take less than four months, but two years down the line, they are yet to move out."

Eldoret South MP Mrs Peris Simam wrote to Police Commissioner Iteere on April, 7, raising farmers’ concerns.

Simam said that the ASTU camp in the area was misplaced, as the area was not prone to cattle rustling. The correspondence between the police and the farmers’ body seen by The Standard indicate that the issue has been simmering for the last two years.

Private Land

A letter dated February 4,2010, and written on behalf of the Commissioner of Police by a Mr Mc’Opiyo, and addressed to the Commandant Anti-Stock Theft Unit acknowledges that the officers are occupying private land and that the society members owning the land were demanding compensation.

Wareng’ District Commissioner Alex Ole Nkoyo said he was aware of the dispute.