A natural spring inside the Mau Forest (file). Photo: Galkey via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
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15,000 families locked out of Mau evictee payout.
More than 15,000 families evicted from the Mau Forest say they have been left out of a government compensation programme, even though they qualify. The dispute is giving President William Ruto a fresh headache in the South Rift, where many of the families live.
The families accuse local administrators and government officials of adding the names of their own relatives and associates to the compensation list, even though those people were never evicted from the forest.
A pledge still being paid out
Ruto has been settling a 2022 campaign promise to compensate Mau evictees. In late August, the government paid Sh2.6 billion to 13,000 families who had settled on the late Provincial Commissioner Cheluget's farm, at Sh200,000 each. A total of 28,000 families had registered as internally displaced people after being evicted from the forest.
The fresh complaints suggest the list used for that payout was incomplete, or was manipulated. For families in Narok and the wider South Rift who say they were forced off their land during earlier eviction drives, the row over who counts as a genuine victim threatens to reopen old wounds just as the government tries to close the file.
This story was put together by K N N from material first published by Daily Nation.
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More than 15,000 families evicted from the Mau Forest say they have been left out of a government compensation programme, even though they qualify. The dispute is giving President William Ruto a fresh headache in the South Rift, where many of the families live.
The families accuse local administrators and government officials of adding the names of their own relatives and associates to the compensation list, even though those people were never evicted from the forest.
A pledge still being paid out
Ruto has been settling a 2022 campaign promise to compensate Mau evictees. In late August, the government paid Sh2.6 billion to 13,000 families who had settled on the late Provincial Commissioner Cheluget’s farm, at Sh200,000 each. A total of 28,000 families had registered as internally displaced people after being evicted from the forest.
The fresh complaints suggest the list used for that payout was incomplete, or was manipulated. For families in Narok and the wider South Rift who say they were forced off their land during earlier eviction drives, the row over who counts as a genuine victim threatens to reopen old wounds just as the government tries to close the file.
KNN Newsroom is the staff byline for stories written, rewritten and edited at the Kibra News Network desk. Where a story credits an outside outlet, the original source is linked at the foot of the piece.
