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Kenya: Multi-Billion Project Stuck in Murky Politics
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The East African Standard (Nairobi)
27 April 2008
Posted to the web 28 April 2008
John Oywa And George Olwenya
Nairobi
About a fortnight ago, the President of Dominion Group of Companies threatened to pack his bags and leave Kenya for a neighbouring country due to harassment from leaders. The Yala Swamp project has been dogged by endless controversy.
The Dominion fields in the Yala Swamp have attracted a lot of controversy despite being a multi-bilion project that is offering food and job opportunities.
The expansive Yala swamp basin spreads imposingly, straddling Siaya and Bondo districts before jutting suddenly into Lake Victoria.
Lush papyrus reeds surrounding its edges dance lazily to the afternoon breeze. A bevy of weaverbirds perched atop a mango tree sing happily, their high-pitched melody rising above the din of tractors ploughing the paddy farms.
It is 3.30pm and the Yala Swamp farm in Siaya District is a beehive of activities as labourers struggle to complete their work.
But in the neighbourhood, trouble is brewing. Some villagers who gave out their land for the project are assembling for a demonstration against American investor, Mr Calvin Burges, whose Dominion Group of companies is running the multi-billion Yala swamp farm complex.
They are armed with placards, whistles and twigs. "Burges must go. He promised us honey but we are now starving because he has taken all our land. He has made us squatters in our ancestral homes," says Martin Owiti, one of the demonstrators.
The company has once again sprung to the limelight for all the wrong reasons.
Owiti and his colleagues want the investment, one of the biggest in Nyanza, halted until their grievances are addressed.
Trouble with MoU
They have been pilling pressure to have a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between Dominion, two local authorities and themselves revised, among other demands.
The MoU, they claim, only favours local authorities who rake in millions of shillings in rates from the firm every year.
Police in riot gear rushed to the farm and dispersed them. The following day, Burges who had flown in from the US, convened a press conference and dropped a bombshell. He said he was fed up with the protests, black mail and extortion from some civic leaders and was closing down the project.
"I am tired of blackmail from a certain group of leaders. I am suspending any further development at the swamp until further notice," he says.
Burges denies all accusations, saying he had met his part of the bargain.
The locals, he says, were now economically stable than before. He says the villagers were compensated at market rates.
He says his firm has not been involved in aerial spray and is unaware that animals and crops had been affected by herbicides sprayed over the area.
Three days after he threatened to close the project, some 100 employees were laid off as politicians and church leaders pleaded with him to reverse his decision and complete the project.
Yala Swamp project has been dogged by controversy ever since its inception in 2003.
Burges has reclaimed the swamp using a sophisticated technology and ploughed Sh2 billion into a rice project. He has earmarked a further Sh4.8 billion towards a fish-farming project.
Despite several interventions by the Government and political leaders, including Prime Minister Raila Odinga, controversy continues to dog the project.
The villagers from Siaya and Bondo, the two districts that share the swamp, stormed the company premises to demonstrate against the alleged failure by the American company to honour its obligations to the community.
Locals miss jobs
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Boro West civic leader, Mr Leonard Oriaro, who led the protesters, says Dominion has failed to offer employment opportunities to the locals as agreed in the MoU.
Oriaro claims that most of the locals who were employed by the firm have been fired and replaced with 'outsiders'.
The villagers also accuse the investor of polluting the environment and endangering their animals through use of aerial herbicide sprays.
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