KENYAN GOVERNMENT ACCUSED OF BAD FAITH OVER SOUTHERN BYPASS DECISION
(Posted 12th July 2014)
A decision taken by the Kenyan cabinet during a meeting earlier in the week, to compensate the Kenya Wildlife Service on an acre by acre basis, met with howls of outrage from the conservation fraternity in Kenya, which was prompt to accuse the government of welshing on promises and earlier commitments, raising the question just how anyone could trust them henceforth to uphold conservation principles enshrined in laws and regulations.
Once again did in particular the Environment Cabinet Secretary come under fire for yet another failure to stand up for conservation, following earlier accusations of incompetence over her handling of the poaching crisis and for not appointing a substantive new board for Kenya Wildlife Service. ‘How much more must we tolerate from this government. I read what Dr. Paula Kahumbu put on her Facebook page about the cabinet decision and I am disgusted how this is now playing out. KWS was supposed to get a lot of money in compensation and now it is suddenly no more money and a land exchange. What land is that and where is that land. Why if it is suitable to be park land is it not park land already. This government has failed tourism and conservation. This will only be the start for more land to be grabbed and for the rule of law to be trampled’ ranted a regular Nairobi based conservation source while sending a copy of what Dr. Paula had posted on her Facebook page:
Start quote:
CABINET GIVES AWAY PART OF NAIROBI PARK FOR THE SOUTHERN BYPASS – this was not a condition of the ruling made in an Environmental Tribunal case we initiated 2 years ago. KenHA is still required to conduct a new EIA and to go for approval to parliament. Sadly KenHA has gone back on it’s original offer of compensating KWS for the value of the land (about 250 million per acre) and are instead giving acre for acre. Tragic. RIP Nairobi Park. If the impact on Ngong Road is anything to go by, I predict that KenHa will ignore the 38 provision and about 38 ha will balloon and the project and Nairobi Park will be unrecognizable.
PRESS RELEASE ON CABINET MEETING – 10TH JULY, 2014
July 10, 2014/in News, Press /by PSCU PRESS RELEASE ON CABINET MEETING – 10TH JULY, 2014
Cabinet today met and Approved the following:
Fighting corruption: – Resolved to ruthlessly continue tackling corruption and unethical practices in all MDA and remove all individuals, cartels and enablers of corruption. Without fear or favour. All officers involved in corruption must be dismissed and charged in Court on.
Construction of Road within the boundary of the Nairobi National Park commonly referred to as the Southern Bypass. The road will consume about 38HA of the Park. However, the Park will be compensated on Hectare for Hectare. This road will ease congestion in the City Centre by re-routing city heavy commercials and other vehicles proceeding to Rift Valley and East African Countries.
End quote
Other conservationists consulted shared the fear that once the Kenyan government has gotten away with carving out a section of the park for the new Southern Bypass Highway, that other projects like the new standard gauge railway will use this precedent to also claim land from the park for their ‘development’. The railway developers have already demanded that sections of Tsavo National Park be handed over to them to construct the new rail line. ‘The sanctity of our protected areas has now been breached. KWS will not object that they will not get the promised money; that money they were promised for behaving well and not making too much noise, and that they will now be given land like the crumbs from their master’s table. Their integrity is no longer there as they are now agents of the government of the day to consent and do what is in the interest of developers. And those are not just developers of public infrastructure, just wait, there will be demands for land for posh estates or even mining or oil exploration in other parks. Once this government has opened the floodgates, it will be too lucrative for the usual suspects to stop there’ wrote another, presenting the tenor of opinions received yesterday after being tipped off on Dr. Paula’s post on Facebook. Suggestions were floated that another court case be brought to tackle exactly the issues raised in the post and to make sure that no actual work can be done before an EIA has been completed and scrutinized by the public according to current rules. ‘Maybe we need another injunction to make sure that the court ruling we got will be respected because I fear that those in power may ignore it and not even bother about contempt of court charges’ added yet another, showing how deeply rooted the suspicion about the intent of the government has gone.
Certainly fodder for thought and an evolving saga which is worth watching.
