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{
    "id": 946105,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/946105/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 147,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kipkelion West, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Hilary Kosgei",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13381,
        "legal_name": "Hilary Kiplang'at Kosgei",
        "slug": "hilary-kiplangat-kosgei"
    },
    "content": "The Chepyuk Settlement Scheme is a rich agricultural area which feeds the larger part of Bungoma County and western region. When we regularise this land, the people of Mt. Elgon and the settlers in Chepyuk Settlement Scheme will accelerate agricultural activities and do profitable farming. This will help their children and the Government of Kenya to achieve the Big Four Agenda through food security. In that line, this country is full of areas like the Chepyuk Settlement Scheme, which were given out by the first President of Kenya and have not been regularised up to date. They are causes of conflict between communities and the Government. I want to call upon the Government to do a national audit of all settlement schemes which were given out since Independence for purposes of regularising what is possible and locking out what is deemed as forest land. This area is twofold, namely Chepyuk Settlement Scheme, which is on the lower side and Chepkitale, which is an old shrine belonging to the Ndorobo people of Mt. Elgon. This area does not support any forest coverage and is generally moorland. It is used as a community shrine and for grazing animals. I have never seen a community that protects forests like the people of Chepkitale and Chepyuk settlement schemes. As we do this, we want to write-off the wrongs which have bedeviled this country, for example, the Mau issue, which has become deep in this country. People are being thrown out of their homes yet Mau is not the source of River Mara. The Government knows that the source of the Mara River is Kiptunga Forest in Nakuru County. The area has been given to large saw millers like the Timsales Saw Mills to plant exotic trees which consume a lot of water. After the rivers have dried, they blame innocent citizens living kilometres away. We want the Government to get serious about conservation and come up with a national policy on conserving all the five major water towers in Kenya from Mt. Elgon, Cherangany Hills, the Mau, Aberdares and Mt. Kenya forests. Instances where the Government does things on impulses skewed towards achieving a particular political objective or agenda cannot help this country to move forward. As I support this Report, I want the Ministries of Environment and Forestry and Lands to come up with a national policy. For example, in Nyandarua County, the county government offices are in an area that is not degazetted and people forgot long time ago that it was a forest. There is no point of pretending that the Kenya Forest Service (KFS) can still claim such land. In other areas in this country, our people will live in peace if they know that the land they own is secure. They cannot suffer threats because of any change in regime or rogue cabinet secretaries like the Cabinet Secretary for Environment and Forestry, who is chasing people from their land for no reason. I am calling for a national audit of all settlement schemes which were issued to avoid a situation where rogue cabinet secretaries misuse power to make citizens suffer for no reason."
}