More than 500 IDPs from Nakuru have asked the government to resolve land conflicts that have persisted for years.
Speaking in Nakuru the group made up of people displaced in the 2007 clashes said although previous administrations of Presidents Mwai Kibaki and Uhuru Kenyatta’s had made progress, a few people had been left out.
“Many of us were promised Land but never received any. There are a lot of areas where we can be resettled in Central and Rift Valley. We just want an end to this homelessness,” said Kenya Internally Displaced Persons Organization (KIDPO) Patron Peter Tena.
Mr Tena at the same time urged the government to remedy historical land injustices countrywide which he said started in the pre-colonial era way back in the 1960s.
He said the nature of the injustices are the same across all the regions in the country and follow specific patterns that relate to colonial displacement, inequitable land adjudication, incomplete land acquisition, natural resources conflict, evictions and natural disasters.
Mr Tena said some IDPs left the displacement camps in 2008, but had nowhere to call home.
He pointed out that officials in the Provincial Administration including then district commissioners, district officers and chiefs who handled the initial phases of resettlement were the main beneficiaries in the first cash disbursement following the poll violence.
Lack of checks, added Mr Tena ,meant the officials would include non-existent people, cronies and family members in the list of beneficiaries, ensuring the compensation programme started on a wrong trajectory.
An estimated Ksh 1.5 billion was spent in the first phase dubbed ‘Operation Rudi Nyumbani’ targeting people who owned land to go back even though most had their homes razed during the chaos.
The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) was also urged to reopen a probe on former members of National Coordination Consultative Committee (NCCC) on IDPPs over alleged loss of billions of shillings meant for resettlement of people displaced in the 2007/2008 post-election violence.
Mr Tena said criminal charges had not been preferred against three prominent members of NCCC despite detectives having probed them and unearthed massive theft of funds.
He claimed that though the committee was expected to play a crucial role in enabling the government to discharge its functions by facilitating the resettlement of the IDPs, its former members responsible for the loss had not been brought to account.
Lands Chief administrative Secretary Kimani Ngunjiri assured the group that the state will audit all land bought by taxpayers money for purposes of settling IDPS.
At least 660,000 people were displaced during the 2007/2008 post-election violence as per reports from human rights organizations.
The Kibaki government started an elaborate Ksh 20.7 billion compensation scheme for the thousands of Kenyans affected by the violence, which was concluded by the Jubilee administration.
The National Treasury was in charge of the fund, but the payment was overseen by the National Coordination Consultative Committee (NCCC) under the Devolution and Planning ministry.
County commissioners that work under the Interior ministry coordinated the county payments. In 2013, the Jubilee administration took over the compensation scheme.
The government through the Devolution ministry disbursed more than Ksh17.5 billion as compensation for the IDPs.
Later, corrupt cartels infiltrated the process and registered bogus IDPs at a fee. The fake IDPs later benefited from the fund at the expense of the genuine ones.
It also emerged that some 27,000 persons countrywide had been omitted from the Ksh 50,000 compensation package.
