The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)
Samuel Kamndaya
6 July 2009
Dodoma — Haunted by evictions, pastoralists have now decided to present their grievances to Members of Parliament (MPs), with a view to persuade the lawmakers to play a pivotal in making sure that land belonging to pastoralists is demarcated accordingly.
Grouped under the Pastoralists indigenous NGO's (Pingos Forum), a membership organisation for Pastoralists and Hunter-Gatherers, the aggrieved pastoralists met MPs here on Saturday.
A synopsis of the Pingos Forum paper, presented by Andrew Msami indicates that pastoralists are tired of being evicted from all the places that they go to in their search for pasture.
"Pastoralists are evicted wherever they go the eviction exercise itself does not follow the right procedures," said Msami.
He was referring the recent brutal evictions of pastoralists in Kilosa allegedly after the pastoralists engaged into clashes with peasants, claiming at least left six lives; resulting into destruction of large amount of properties and houses and displacement of over 2,000 persons.
According to Pingos Forum, pastoralists were evicted without notice. They were neither compensated nor given an alternate place to settle.
"Above all, they were charged very high fines, with each animal fined up to Sh10,000," he intoned.
Pastoralists were forced to sell their animals to civil servants at throw away prices, with each animal fetching between Sh800 and Sh50,000 instead of the usual prices of between Sh250,000 and Sh500,000 for an animal.
In response, the MPs from pastoralists' communities promised to pursue the issue to the last.
The Maswa MP, John Shibuda promised the pastoralists that he would connect them so that they meet Prime Minister, Mizengo Pinda on that same day.
He however advised them to make a thorough analysis of what might be the cause of wrangles between them and peasants.
The Kongwa MP, Job Ndugai pointed that most pastoralists have lost their properties through fishy ways in the eviction process.
The Simanjiro MP, Mr Christopher Ole-Sendeka concurred with his counterparts, noting that there were both pastoralists and peasants in his constituency but no so far, there have not been reports of wrangles between the two.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2009 The Citizen. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
