Nairobi — Hundreds of families displaced in the election violence are being resettled on land in Nakuru District previously owned by the Kenyatta family.

The more than 3,000 families, who have been camping at Mawingo IDP camp in Nyandarua, are being resettled on 1,171 acres at Gicheha farm in Rongai Division, which the government is reported to have bought from the former First Family.

On Monday, Rift Valley provincial commissioner Osman Warfa said the government had bought 8,232 acres to resettle the IDPs in Nakuru, Molo and Ol Kalou.

However, the PC as well as Rongai district commissioner Benjamin Nzioka said they did not know the cost of the land or the people who sold it to the government.

"The role of the Provincial Administration in the resettlement exercise is to provide logistics and ensure security of the displaced families. I do not have an idea who sold the land and for how much," Mr Warfa said.

Gicheha farm is owned by Gicheha Holdings Limited, a company in which members of the Kenyatta family are shareholders.

A senior official at the Lands ministry, who did not want to be quoted since he is not authorised to speak to the media said: "The Land in Rongai was bought from Kenyatta family."

He also said the transaction is concluded, but he does not know how much the farm was sold for.

Lands minister James Orengo is out of the country and could not be reached.

Kenya Land Alliance coordinator, Mr Odenda Lumumba, said: "The land it is part of Gicheha farm, which is owned by the family of the late Kenyatta."

Nakuru Town MP Lee Kinyanjui, an ally of Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, dismissed the claims, saying the Kenyatta family sold the land to someone who in turn sold it to the government.

The relocation has caused tension between the IDPs and the people already settled there.

About 30 elders from Rongai met Mr Warfa over the issue last Friday and complained that the government favoured the IDPs and has done little for the 25,000 squatters in the area.

The PC warned that anyone who interfered with the resettlement will be arrested. He said that the land had been bought on a willing-buyer willing-seller basis.

On Monday, Rongai MP, Mr Luka Kigen said the resettlement was a PNU ploy to boost their numbers in Parliament after the 2012 elections, which Mr Kinyanjui dismissed as "rubbish".

The ODM MP accused the government for sidelining the leaders in the resettlement and warned that this would derail the reconciliation efforts in the Rift Valley.

Finance minister Uhuru Kenyatta was in Mawingo camp on Friday and spoke to the IDPs on the need to relocate to Rongai. Accompanied by Mr Kinyanjui, the minister flagged off the first group of IDPs at a colourful ceremony.

The poll chaos victims had already pooled the Sh10,000 paid to each family and bought a 60-acre farm.

In 2007, the government had bought 927 acres from the same Gicheha Holdings Limited in Mtwapa Division of Coast Province to resettle the landless in Kilifi District, according to a report by Kenya Land Alliance.

In a newspaper advertisement last month, Lands ministry sought people with large tracts of land who wished to sell to apply. The advert was placed after President Kibaki ordered resettlement of all IDPs living in camps.

Additional reporting by Noah Chepleon, Wanjiru Macharia and Kibiwott Koross