Our investigative Reporter at Kendu-Bay In Rachuonyo South.

CLAIMS and allegations that a former cabinet minister from Nyanza Provincegrabbed a piece of communal land which was set aside for group farming and converted it into his personal use.

The project was originally initiated by the same MP who persuaded the villagers to donate pieces of land parcel under the pretext that the farm would be used in production of horticultural, bananas and other cash crops as part of the scheme to eradicate poverty in the area.

Those who donated pieces of land were supposed to retain their own pieces as demarcated on the ground. One member of the group donated his lorry to serve the group farmers and later purchased a water pump and its engine for Kshs 248,000 and surrendered to the group. But the engine altogether with the pump was later sold out in his absent in unexplained circumstances.

The engine and the water pump were supposed to be used in irrigating the farm.

Deeply involved in the alleged land grabbing scam is the former two times MP for Karachuonyo, Dr. Adhu Awiti.

The former MP at one time had served briefly as the Minister for Planning in the Treasury during the brief merger between KANU/LDP under the retired President Daniel Arap Moi. He lost his seat in 2007 when he suffered defeat under the incumbent Eng.James K Rege during the ODM preliminary nominations.

He is currently serving in the Officer of the Prime Minister as an adviser on political matters to Raia Odinga.

The farm in question measuring between 20 and 30 acres is baptized as “Atandi Farm. It is located near Miti Mbili fishing landing beach in Kanjira sub-locatin, Karachuonyo West in Rachuonyo North district within the Homa-Bay County. It is situated along the shoreline of the Nyanza Gulf {part of Lake Victoria}.

It could be assessed from the Junction of Pala Market and the road to Huma-Kanam.

It is located in an area which is bordering the Kapiyo sub-clan of Wagwe to the east and the Ohindo Kamunga sub-clam of Kanjira clan in the west. Those donors who surrendered their farms which were later converted into “Atandi Farm was mainly from the Ohindo-Kanjira group, but with few other peasants’ farmers living along the boundary of the two sub-clans.

Rumor making the round is that one widow who resisted the scheme and refused to surrender her piece of land had her house burnt to ashes by some people suspected to be hired political goons. But the rumor could not be confirmed immediately.

According to a Kisumu based prominent businessman-cum-politician, Mr George Kwanya Odidi, the farm was established and built out of consolidated pieces of land donated by the local peasant farmers on the understanding that it would be registered and turned into a group farming. And that the profits accrued from the sales of its products would be distributed to members and shared equally by the group. But has not been the case.

A relative of the MP who was previously working in Nairobi as a dress-maker Mr Magonya Otondi was engaged and posted to the farm to work as its manager. The said manager has sine left the areas in huff and went back to Nairobi where he resumed his tailoring work in the City.

The former MP is currently growing bananas , vegetable and horticultural crops for himself and his family as if the entire farm belonged to him. The issue has elicited discontent in the area with those farmers from Wagwe sub-clan demanding that the former legislator vacate the land so that it could revert to its original owners.

Odidi told this writer that he had sourced a very powerful leister engine which he bought from a farm machinery and implement in Kisumu. The engine and the water pump were to be used in irrigating the farm.

As he was by then working as a senior employee of the Ministry of Water Resources and at one time, he was sent for further training abroad. He left the engine and the water pump in a working condition and under the custody of the former MP for safe keeping.

But upon his return, he only learnt through hearsay that the engine altogether with the pump had been sold to some farmers from either the Rift Valley or Central Province at a double price of Kshs 480,000 and he was mesmerized and perplexed at the turn of events

Information reaching us says the matter has caused jittery and even at times charged tension with the farmers demanding back their land as the project seemed to have failed before taking off from the ground.

Dr Awiti is currently involved in the campaign for the ODM grass root elections, which has since been postponed for more than thrice. He has been on the ground in Karachuonyo addressing a series of ODM party campaign rallies across the vast Krachuonyo Constituency while working together with groups identified as anti-the current MP Eng James K Rege.

Ends