Jaluo.com,
What do you say on this?
It is interesting that Dominion Foods Ltd, has given notice to quit. This is to whoever signed lease with them their terms of acquring Yala Swamp.
It is equally shocking that this company was awarded 3,700 hectares of wetland around the tributary of River Yala at a price of Kshs.1,254,782=( one million, two hundred and fifty four, seven hunred and eighty two only) per annum for 25 (twenty five year) with effect from 25-5-2004.
The agreement was signed between County councils of Siaya and Bondo on one part and Dominion Farms Ltd. on the other.
They got the land at a price of Kshs.339/15 per hectare per year or Kshs.137= per acre per year for 25 years.
This is the chapest cost of land in Kenya. Even deserts do not go for all that low.
In a country where land is very valuabe and we kill one another daily for it, why would we give our land freely to foreigners?
This land was given out at a price of USD 2 per acre! fper year or twenty five years a whole generation. This is ridiculous. They must pack up at ealiest and go.Why threaten us on our land?
There are many pepole from that area who have been displaced by internal conflict and this the time to settle them on such prime land.
Presently there is no tangible benefit from this company to the locals. There is no job creation, no infrastucture improvement nor any techniocal capacity transfer.
One wonders who negotiated such prices and for whose benefit.
This is the time for us to be sensitive to our poor by settling them on this land. We fore fathers died for independence to get our land not to give it to foreigners.
Ministry of lands and settlement should investigate such anomalies with a view to settle the internally displaced people from that area on this 3,700 hectares of land.
Felix Owaga Okatch
tel; 254-721-735489
Unedited by Jaluo Press.
Felix,
It does not really matter how much the land was leased for, rather, and I hope you read the Standard today, 100 people were laid off that would have probably made an income off of that land for the length of the lease. I am sure that in the course of the project, many more would have benefited.
Look at the flip side of the coin. Most commercial agricultural projects in Nyanza, and especially in our Central Nyanza region have failed miserably due to mismanagement and the old Luo adage “but do I say” and “let me pick you up in my Lexus” I called you from Texas on Tuesday morning but did not get a chance to talk to you since you hang up. I hope you are not from Gem and your relatives did not just get laid off at Dominion. Otherwise, you and Odhiambo Oketch need to undergo a complete paradigm shift. There are certain simple principles that underly good investment strategy. Cost, return and payback are the basic tenets that drive a good investment decision. Dhi kwecho is going to land on deaf ears, especially now that you lost 100 jobs and more are on the radar for layoffs. Ungeyo jothurwa, Dhano ol ga winjou kukwecho. Afadhali ngato okonyi mondo inyal gerri. Lakini in ema dhogi tek. Dak iwinjo gima Edwin Yinda ohombou go kawuono, to jakoyo m’ochung ni Gem to nikure?
Eventually, any camel’s back breaks and I for on am damn sure not going to let my back break.
Dak imiyo wa alternative kaka wanyalo replace tije ma ji mia achiel go o lose. Koso ne in one of the people mane temo kwayo asoya m’omiyo Calvin owuok. If you are that bad, ndik jogo te tich mondo giyud pesa magibiro nyalo chulo ni nyithindgi odhi e sikul ae modong giket go kuon e mesa.
I feel real small today being a jaluo AND educated AND from GEM.
jagem
Okwach,
I disagree with you entirely! You sound as though you were one of those hoodlums who drove away white farmers from Zimbabwe. Witness the consequences! What good was that land to the people before the locals started their threats? Was it not a mosquito breeding ground spreading malaria and killing young children and adults alike? Now we are told 100 have lost their jobs already. What other source of livelihood are you and others who think like you going to give them? You say technical knowhow has not been transferred to the locals. What exactly do you mean by this? Was there no other avenue through which the extortionists could channel their complaints if they have any? With due respect to you, Okwach, your likes are dragging the Luo well into the stone age! Go tell them aids can be cured through witchcraft.!
Good! I hope they are not going to sell the land to highest bidder in order to recoup the peanuts they paid for it using thumb prints!
The educated “get rich quick’ young Luos in USA, who do not seem to know or understand that people go to war, bleed and die because of land are to blame here. The Iraqis are dying by the thousands to protect their oil fields.
Yet, these Luos were willing to participate in to tricking poor land owners to depart with their ancestral land properties ! These are the people who are willing to do anything to please foreigners with money hoping some of that money will make them very rich.
Well buddies, foreigners with money do not have friends, they only have interests. These people (Dominion Farmers) knew the countries where they want to operate in and out and needed the misguided educated Luos with desires to make a few bucks to lead them to local councillors and media.
Yala Swamp Project solicited the help of educated Luos in Oklahoma, USA and local media cheer leaders who managed to help bamboozle poor land owners in the the area into thinking that they will be instant millionaires.
Should there be any inquiry as to who helped Dominion Farms acquire Yala property, the people in the following links can provide some of the lead.
http://www.jaluo.com/wangwach/1106/Leo_Odera_Omolo112306.html
Who is telling the truth here? If the Lake Basin Development Authority had initiated this project would this level of acrimony be prevailing? I agree with Lucia that the private sector Multinationals are in it for money full stop.
However, I am just wondering if any good has (can) come out of this prroject or can be salvaged? Who is telling the truth here: We read that NGOs have an interest in the perenial poverty marwa jonam. Emomio gin emagi goyo koko ma negative.
Being a victim of media confusions and obfuscations, can anybody out there break this controversy simply to us uninformed mortals?
George and Joluo duto,
Greetings to all of you wherever you might be in any part of the world.
This Dominion project is good.It is a foreign investment in our neighbourhood.
I do not come from Alego or Yimbo.
An wuod Gem Nyawara. But I have interest in developmental issues.
As a matter of fact my response was to the threat that this firm made that they wanted to go and as wuod Gem ma ok dogi chien , I challenged them to live to that threat.They could not biewo ji.After all in this relationship they are benefiting more.
They have since succumbed.
Now this project is good and it is upon our educated few to encourage it to extend developmental capacity to the Luos on the ground.Luos need to be trained to take over in future.
The neighbours need to have better dairy, and farming methods as the on we have in Gem Millenium village at Bat Sauri, better health care and shoping centres.
Last December I passed through the farm and noticed that the difference between these investors and the Luos there is like day and night.
As I always say in some fora, there is no point of driving a four wheel Japanese car to you home while you do not even have a grass thatchet sibma.Nor take effort to encourage the youth at home to work hard and be better than you in future.
Yawa, this benefit of Dominion needs to have trickle down effect and corporate social responsibilty that is all inclusive with a view to help jodala.
Presently activities in this farm are highly mechanined and the poor Luos in the neighbourhood are just spectators.
This is the concern.
We need to work together and uplift our poor from abject poverty.
The days when multinationals could ripp of the poor are long gone.Development must be all inclusive, that is when the technical know how and better enterprise can cascade down to the working poor around the swamp.
I hope I am understood.I also welcome and thoughts to the contary.That is when I can learn more.
Felix Owaga Okatch
wuod Gem Nyawara
Does anyone have access to Dominion’s project document showing cost and icnome flows? The Kshs 400 per month/acre rate is criminal!! Suppose an acre produced 20 bags of maize twice a year, sold at Kshs 1,500, this would lead to annual income of Kshs 60,000. Mano pok wawacho what wold be generated from beans intercropped with the maize.
But the development problem in Luoland is the failure to shed the ‘kapango attitude’, which developed during colonialism when Nyanza was a labour reserve. Jodongo stopped puro nikech nyithindo tiyo kapango oro pesa minyiewogo chiemo. Dayo manee puro was looked down upon for not benfitting from remittances! The nutritious kuon bel was replaced by white maize flour. And so on….
What Luoland needs most is attitude change so that we exploit the massive land resource potential currently lying idle everywehere. This concern I have advocated as far back as the Kiseru debates when people wanted to collect money to buy Sunset Hotel!!! I keep hearing people saying: wachok pesa wayaw a Luo Equity/Family Bank, wanyiew buses, etc. Such initiatives have worked for Okuche nikech they have income at the grassroots rather than relying on (foreign-based) remittances. In other words, we must first create the incomes which will go into the Luo Equity/Family Bank. Okullu’s Lake Finance – was that the name? – did not boom like Equity/Family partly because Luos are income poor.
Whether Dominion is a good or bad thing can easily be resolved through a socio-economic cost-benefit analysis four years into the project. However, it seems to me that creating a mere 100 waged jobs while disrupting rural livelihoods is likely to impoverish rather than elevate local rural communities. For example, how do the hundreds of villagers abetting the Dominn property survive when the councillors agreed to Dominion’s condition that such people must stop producing traditional maize?
The bottom line really is that we do not need the Dominion’s to develop. On the contrary, such initiatives are likley to underdevelop through heightened dependence, which is why Dominion can glibely threaten to withdraw beliveing we will plead with it not to.
We have too much local expertise which is idle, such that we are transforming all the technical training instituions which used to produce agriculture extension staff, for example, into quarter-baked univerisity branches. What we desprately need, though, is the political will to develop!
Jothurwa, bang’ my previous posting to ayudo mae:
http://www.madaraka.com/Video/13.html
Background
The Yala Swamp conflict started in 2003 when regional government authorities granted a 25-year lease to Dominion Farms Ltd, a subsidiary of Dominion Group of Companies based in Edmond, Oklahoma USA.But the unconfirmed reports indicate that the lease has been revised to 45 years Authorities approved the company’s Environmental Impact Assessment specifically for rice irrigation in a 2,300 hectare-area (about 12% of the Yala Swamp territory). But almost immediately Dominion began building irrigation dikes and a weir, airstrips and roads, and announced plans to build a hydroelectric plant and a major aquaculture venture, including fish farms, a fish processing factory and a fish mill factory, all of which could damage the fragile ecosystem far beyond the designated 2300 ha. Dominion wants control of over 65% of Yala Swamp for its expanded “integrated project.†Some of this area is privately owned by hundreds of families. Some of it is used communally, including the species-rich waters of Lake Kanyaboli which is critical for food security in the region. The indigenous people say the company has in effect privatized the lake and public roads, blocking lake access to over 200 fishermen and impeding access to schools, markets and health clinics. It is these issues that have led to a protracted battle between the multinational and the local community.
Until Dominion came along, the people of this part of Kenya made their living drawing water from the local Yala River. They raised goats and cows and farmed small plots of land. Widows and children harvested papyrus and sisal from the nearby swamp from which they crafted rough mats and baskets. A major habitat for endangered fish and birds, the Yala Swamp is recognized by environmentalists as one of the richest and most delicate ecosystems in East Africa.
Dominion offered residents compensation to leave their homes (generally 45,000 Kenyan shillings, approximately $64). Many people refused, but their land was submerged anyway. Now all fields are flooded,” to quote one old grandmother.
For those that remain, the company’s dam blocks access to the river, the one available source of fresh water. “Now they want community to use standing water,” explained Yala Swamp resident. But with the standing water comes infection. Malaria and typhoid rates are rising. Now aerial spraying is killing livestock. “And our women are suffering from health problems because of the spraying,
The half-million or so local residents weren’t rich but they were self-sufficient. Now they’re forced to live on the handouts.
Update of Progress on the arrests of Livestock and Community members
The YALA Swamp Conflict took another twist on 18th April 2008 when Administration Police from Siaya under Inspector Sang with the help of Siaya Police office and Dominion askari’s drove 278 cattle, 15 sheep and three Donkeys into Dominion farms before driving them to Siaya Police Station. The cattle which were grazing outside the perimeter fence of Dominion farms were under the care of children and herders as owners were attending a meeting at Gendro with the District Commissioner who instead sent the Boro’s Divisional Officer-Mr. Mugo Giciri on his behalf. Since Dominion has fenced off the water point, the community has been using canals put up for watering animals. The challenge with the canals is that water levels within the canals are regulated by the farm’s management such that they often dried up at any time as the farm’s management so wished. This was part of the meeting’s brief.
On this fateful day, it has been confirmed that the company was out to frame the community at whatever cost. In normal days cows drink in the canals but on this specific day, the company strategically placed all their askaris along the canals. As the cows were getting ready to drink the water, the water levels within the canals were reduced hence they had to move to the deeper parts of the canals and in the process askaris scared away the children and the herders who consequently ran away leaving the cattle hostage to the company askaris and the Siaya Administration police. This happened at a time when the community members were in the meeting with Divisional Officer at Ratuoro-Kadenge village –West Boro Ward, Siaya District.
The askaris drove the cows into the company’s premises, and police from Siaya were called through the commander of the O.C.S after which they decided to provide security for the cattle throughout the night before transporting them to Siaya police station the following morning on Saturday the 19th April 2008 where they were detained. Siaya O.C.S and the O.C.P.D order that the cows be detained until the owners are charged in the court of law of with criminal offences. Immediately the DO’s and Community meeting ended , two community members known by the company’s askaris were immediately arrested plus one who went to check on his cattle at the police station. The three-Charles Onyango Apiyo, Aloice Waka Otieno and Otieno Okumu were arraigned in Siaya court on Monday 21st April 2008 before Siaya Principle Magistrate Mr.Mwaura. They were charged with malicious damage to property, tresspass on private property and grazing. They took pleas and were given cash bail of Kshs. 10,000/- (ten thousand) without the option of surerity.
Given the situation in the community, they could not raise the amount required neither could they stand surerity as their land along the company’s boundary has no title deed. The cows, their only other asset that they could sell off and bail themselves out were also detained by the police. Whereas the community claimed that 278 cows, 4 Donkeys and 15 Sheep’s were arrested the police insisted that only 165 cattle were apprehended. This presented another twist to the crisis. There were reports that a number of the arrested cattle were seen within the Town a few days after the arrest a fact the police deny vehemently instead saying they are taking care of the animals. Community members are worried about the general feeding and health of their animals. This claim has been confirmed by the O.C.S that some cattle were sick and could not move to Siaya Police Station and were therefore abandoned on the way.
Initially the O.C.S was adamant the only bond he could give was at least 1000 Kshs per cattle but after discussions, he agreed to reduce the charge to between 3000-5000 Kshs per owner depending on the number of cattle owned by an individual. On average about 34 community members own the cattle’s apprehended translating the total charge to 4000 Kshs by 34 equaling 136 000 Kshs for the release of the cattle plus 30,000 Kshs for the three who were charged on Monday 21st April 2008 and still languishing in Siaya Prison. The O.C.S ‘s is reported to say that he wants to move to court to allow him to auction the cattle to the public if the owners fail to pay for the bond or avail themselves to be arrested if they cant raise the money. The Yala Swamp Community whose livelihood originally depended on the Swampland and the cattle feel aggrieved that their life and future is completely destroyed in the name of Mzungu driven development to quote one elder. What originally started as a religious communion has turned out to be robbery with violence as people and their animals are now detained. Which is which they ask? Foreign Direct Investment by the state paid back by all the citizen of a given republic in piecemeal long term or that which is paid by a section of the citizens through loss of their livelihood.
Hi,
I have been having burning with anger over the sale and handing over of this yala swamp land from the local people to foreign investors in kenya. I was born and raised in kadenge, My parents were farmers, they farmed alll sorts of crops including cotton and fed up to 50% of the nation with food that came from here, we had plenty of food, which used to be stores in large ginneries outside our houses, we had enough money to pay for our education, clothing, better health facilities, and less disease, there used be floods, water was much cleaner. Until the government decided to get greedy and take the land from local farmers and handed to foreign investors who introduced dangerous faming methods polluting the soil, the water, and the river that was source of their clean drinking water, they also polluted the water sotorage that had been dug for clean drinking water.
The foriegn farmers employed lacal labours for no pay at all, they claimthey pay then 1 dollar aday but they dont. They sack workers before pay day. They dont care for their health , they work in dangerours conditions damp chemical infested, water without protective boots, they have now developed all sorts of disease, which is being accused on HIV and Aids. The chemical introduced in food are poisoning the local people, causeing them to develope severe auto immume diseases such cancer, brain disorder and burining disease thats buring their intestines and flesh from inside out and eventually killing them cuase doctors cant diagonize the cause
The food produced by the farmers are being shipped direct to Europe or America, they dont sell food to locals or within the country as their food is above the price of kenyans own prices, as farmers claim to have more cost of production than local kenyan farmers when they actually get subsidised by thegovernment and and get free work force.
Another thing, they have been lying to have charitable activitiea, such as developed that, roads, hospitals, or free medical facilities robbing money from foreign countries using local people, puting pictures on the internet of works they have done, collecting charity cash, that never reach the people, hindering the people from accessing help that they need.
These people are poverised becuase of what the government has and is always doing to them, but have always worked with hands they are hard wokring people. All developement that ever took place in Kandenge or Obambo is by the local people themseves, struggling to raise their lives, the local people struglling to raise funds to get access to clean water improve their medical facilities homes, and education and provide for their families when the government show no mercy but pressing on them and killing them.
I strongly say the goverment the local city council is at breachof human rights law. They sold the land to the foreigners for a price of a life of a child a human being to kill them, selling it for no price as though that village was occupied by graves only. I got educated to university, by my father who was a famer, at that time education was very expensive my father paid with money from crops he produced from that land. The government claimed that the people werent utilising the land effectively, and yet from the produce they feed 50% of the kenya as nation with what they produced and now what husks , you want to tell mean husk is better than corn, the sweet bananas i used to it from the tree, the juicy oranges, the pineaples, the sugar cane, the heavy joucy soft cassava that was the size of my body, all these good food went as soon as the big feet of foreing farmers steppped their, all we got is now feilthy stincking ponds, no fish, broken, homes , no education, for children, diseases . You want to tell me this is better than what my parents gave me when i was a child before 1978. They took the farm from our parents and gave our parents grounded yellow power meant to be pigs food that was given once claiming the country had startvation after sopping the locals from farming for over one year.
Now people feed on husks ( food you not suppose to feed a dog with) , food for birds, filled with dangers chemicals which they are sold to the local people at an expensive price, a price of aqaulity food produced by local farmers in Kenya.
The foreigners sell them food that is infested with maggets, and with poisoning chemilcals not fit for human consumption, which is just eroding the popullation of ALego people, I mean killing them . This is muder in broad day light, the city council collaborated with foreign investors to kill kenyans. If the thought they would reduce population this way, they are wrong. Men they are wrong.
These people tears have touched many, the governemnt may have paid lives of people for a dollar to reduce the kenyans population by kill the people, as though HIV and Aids is not doing the job quick enough, by they wont get away with it.
These people need help the country need help to break from this curse, the curse of greed to have feriegn money, dollar or pound, we cant eat pieces of metals and paper in the name of money. Lives have been lost, the country is dying, children are growing without parents and to have a grand parent will become history . This becuase of greed for a dollar or a pound.
Please help the people to cry out get these farmers out of the country they have done enough damage , we dont need them, the country has enough cash in the bank and in foreign banks to subside local farmers. Kenyans are dying not becuase of diseases or lack of medicine they are dying becuase of lack of food, food only food those people need, we can produce food in our own country enough to feed our ever growing population. Becuase we have done it the past, and we have fed other nations as well, WE CAN, Let us join hands
Miriam
Miriam and to all our luo peple
The forein investors all over Africa are here for own interest. We are just a means to achieve that interest. You can even see who is aiding them to colonise our people.all we must do must be in own terms but ufortunately the signatories also have non local interest in local projects. Just look at the names of the “administrators” and the reduced number of “arrested” cows! Can’t you ask why Niger delta in Nigeria is getting “too hot” for oil “investors”
Wuod Rachuonyo
Hi Everyone,
I have been reading these comments from Joluo and found them very interesting. I am involved in a campaign against World Bank and IFIs. I have been in Webuye where IFC is involved and managed to file a complaint to IFC. I am also involved in Yala, Flowers farming of Naivasha and Salt Manufacturers in Malindi.
My contacts in IFIs cannot engage these three facilities because they are not funded by IFIs. This means they are funded by Private banks. I would like to appeal to members who may know who which private banks do fund these companies in Malindi, Naivasha and Yala
Waiting to hear from you
Regards
Maurice
It is interesting to read about the interests and concerns mag Joluo about Yala swamp. An Jakochia, H/bay district but I have alot of ecological and conservation interest about yala swamp.
The conservation issues a bout the swamp are greater than the economic returns that may be attained by the Dominion. You mean to say ni wadhi loose the fish and the birds mag yala swamp because of the project ma onge longterm projection to the community.
You can never relocate the swamp, you can never create the Yala swamp. The ecological service it offers to L. Victoria is not measurable. we must protect the swamp, its never a waste land. Jowa manie mbalariany gi NGOs and CBOs we must team up mondo we strongly protect the Swamp. IT IS OUR HERITAGE. IT IS A NATURAL LIVELIHOOD.
ODHIAMBO CHIAWO
Thanks everybody,
Can someone connect me with some groups in Homabay residing near Kimira Oluch Project, I need to contact them as I hear there are issues about ressettlements problems there. I can be contacted at oumaodhiambo@gmail.com.
M. Ouma Odhiambo
Mr. Okatch I would like to concur with 100%. that these people have not taken the suffering of the people in villages of Gendro, Kasawo- Yimbo, Kadenge as well as extending the horror to viilages as inland as Kanyaboli and Obambo.
By the time they took over animal were going for as little a cow at Kshs.1000 since if one dont sell it where will go grazing it.
Wetland are kept in trust for the people by the govt. of the land (National Environment Act 2007). We pray for anything else, not the Zimbabwe situation since when you press your nose too much nothing else you see but blood.
I’m distraught by the situation in Kenya – a reflection of what is happening globally. This film puts Dominion/Kenya in a larger context.
Keep up the fight.
YALA SWAMP/DOMINION FARMS LIMITED (ISSUES)
By Felix O.Okatch
I refer to article in your Standard on Saturday 2/04/2011 on the above subject. It was well researched by your reporter Mr.Dann Okoth. However there a few gaps which are mentioned below;
Dominion Farms Limited has had many good and bad things alleged about them generally. The community where they do business (mechanized farming) has also had many political, economic, social and environmental matters raised. Some are current and others are historical.
Historically the matters started with the Lake Basin Development Authority considering the need to develop this wet land in the past. The Siaya and Bondo county council leaders reading need for development on one side and the coming in of current emerging issues like awareness, technology, globalization and perception about neo-colonialism just to mention a few on the other side. The people of Alego and Yimbo who are genuine stakeholders are different from their fore fathers in term of seeking for better opportunities to improve their livelihoods. In other words river Yala has brought a lot of water down stream with many unrelated consequences.
One major missing information which failed your writer and many other commenting stakeholders in Yala Swamp is that this land in question was leased to a foreign investor from USA at a fee of USD $ 2 per acre for 25 years up to year 2028. And for any multinational investor their needs are profit and nothing else. Their profits must flow in one direction that is their home country and shareholders. This is what the villagers at Yala swamp do not know.
The Lease Agreement was signed e between Siaya and Bond county councils on one part and Dominion Foods Limited on the other. It was a lease drawn by Kaplan & Stratton, Nairobi. The agreement mentions all other standard conditions that apply including recognition of Trust Land Act Cap 288 and Local Authorities Act Cap.265.
Consideration was the Dominion Farms Limited pays a sum of Kshs.1, 673,043= per annum per hectares for the said 3,700hectares. This works out to be a lease of Kshs.183= per year for one acre. In USA it is referred to be the cheapest land acquision ever. The land cost a mere USD 2 Dollars per acre, per year.
Apart from being cheap and throwing resources away in the name of development and pleasing foreign investor, the villagers are now awake. They raise questions as to what benefits they are getting. They realize that not much. The statusquo of poverty and deprivation is still persistent. In some instances worse that it was at Kenya’s independence. Their children do not have jobs as they were promised by promoters of this investment. Environmentally they exposed and are worse off than before. This agreement does not have an acuqis clause which states that one should not be left worse off in such investment. The locals do not see or feel any value by having this monster around. Some question whether it is another white elephant in their midst. Local leaders have also got deeply involved in partisan issues and national politics and their expense.
Way forward now is for the investor Dominion Foods Limited is to improve on their Corporate Social Responsibility. This would not be the standard give a ways but hold more meetings workshops and engage fully with the Luos of Alego and Yimbo who border the farm. Whether they like or not the villagers of Alego and Yimbo who border the swamp are destined to work together up to 2028 when the lease expires. All differences as they arise must be debated honestly and constructively.
Felix O.Okatch
Multilateral trade expert
Tel: 254-721-735489 or 0733-735489
2/04/2011
I appreciate your comments. Kindly anybody with facts and details about Yala Swamp and the effects of Dominion Farms on the communities around Yala Swamp to forward me on odsalim@gmail.com. You can also call me on +254-726133433. I am doing some write up on the same. Thanks in advance.
How do we fight Dominion and get the African people land back? What is being done to make this justice for these people?