By Joseph Murimi

Questions have re-emerged over how former President Kenyatta’s regime spent the $100 million given by the British Government at independence to settle the displaced.

A document obtained by The Standard on Sunday revealed that the amount (Sh6.7 billion at current rates) was given to help address land issues including buying of land owned by European settlers.

The deal was a product of negotiations for independence at the Lancaster House Conference in London ahead independence from British colonialism in December 1963.

The money was given to the independence new Government in loans and grants.

On Thursday Lands PS Dorothy Angote re-opened the emotive land issue when she said problems began when the first regime after independence failed to settle citizens who were displaced by the colonialists despite the cash provided for the purpose from the UK.

A letter from the British High Commission in Nairobi, signed by Jonathan Bradbury (political section) in 1997, says it is the responsibility of the Government to settle all outstanding land claims.

Bradbury absolves the British Government on any claims saying the money was provided for and that it was the duty of the Kenyan Government to resolve the land issues.

“The British Government agreed to provide the new Kenyan Government with US$100 million in grants and loans to enable it to settle issues, including the purchase of land farmed by European settlers,” reads the letter.

Deal agreed in Lancaster

Further, the letter states: “It has been the responsibility of the Kenyan Government since independence to settle outstanding land claims with indigenous tribes and this remains the case.

The request for some sort of compensation therefore lies with the present Government, who are responsible for any land claims and settlement.”

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The deal was agreed at during the Lancaster House conference where it was agreed that Kenya be granted independence in December 1963. The letter was in reply to another one written by members of the Pokot community who wanted to know the whereabouts of their compensation for land taken from them.

And yesterday, the members of the Pokot community revisited the issue alleging they were short-changed by the Kenyatta regime. Chairman of the Pokot Professionals Charles Chedotm said the community never benefited from the money paid as compensation for land they lost in Trans Nzoia District.

He said members of the community were evicted from the land in 1922 when Kenya was a British protectorate. The land was given to the white settlers.

He claimed that the community has suffered historical injustices after losing the ancestral land, which he says stretches from Soy, Kachibora to River Nzoia.

“Pokot community became marginalised economically, socially, politically and even educationally and, to date, continue to live in abject poverty,” said Chedotm.

The community blames the Kenyatta Government over the injustices decrying oppression given that even after the colonialists left, the land was not returned to them.

He said unless the land question is settled once and for all, tribal clashes would not end and the country would remain volatile.

courtesy of:http://www.eastandard.net