• Governors Granton Samboja and Joseph Lenku met in Rombo and agreed to end the land feud between the Maasai and Kamba communities.
• Taita Taveta leaders want the agreement to be made public as claims abound the county might have ceded some of its land to Kajiado.
In a historic agreement, 200 Kamba households are to vacate 2,000 acres of a group ranch they are said to have encroached in Kajiado county.
The July 4 agreement, if it holds, will end 40-year-long border dispute between Kajiado and Taita Taveta counties and the Maasai and Kambas in the area.
Taita Taveta Governor Granton Samboja and his Kajiado counterpart Joseph Lenku signed the accord on Rombo Group Ranch in Kajiado South subcounty.
“This is a historic moment that proves we can resolve our differences by talking and agreeing,” Samboja said, adding that it would enhance peace and unity.
Lenku praised the agreement, said Kajiado had reclaimed its land that had been encroached upon by Taita Taveta residents in Njukini.
He urged Kajiado people to utilise the land returned to them for productive economic activities.
The area of dispute is the Njukini area along the two counties’ boundary and the dispute threatened peace.
Kamba community members from Taita Taveta are said to have encroached on the land in the 1980s. The land borders Tsavo West National Park and Kuku group ranch in Kajiado South subcounty.
The Kambas are to be assisted and resettled.
After extensive negotiations, two governors signed three documents: a surveyors’ report on the boundary between Kajiado and Taita Taveta; a report on how the Kamba people will be sensitised and assisted and how the leadership of Kajiado and Taita Taveta will resettle those forced to move.
Rombo Group Ranch chairman John Sitelu, who attended the signing, said it was agreed 200 Kamba households would leave.
“These people encroached on our land and lived on 2,000 acres for the last 40 years. We agreed they will not be compensated for any developments like roads, boreholes and water pans because for the entire period they were not paying rent,” he said.
Kajiado and Taita Taveta will set a date when a 90-days’ notice will be issued to the Kamba community members to allow them to move.
But barely three days after agreement was signed, questions arose over the content of the document.
Taita Taveta leaders now want the contents of the agreement to be made public as there are claims the county might have ceded part of its land to Kajiado.
Morris Mutiso, a former political aspirant in Taveta, said many people living on the disputed land were now “gripped by fear”. He said they are uncertain whether they live in Taita Taveta or Kajiado.
“There is an urgent need to know what changed in the boundary and if the residents were affected,” he said.
Senator Jones Mwaruma of Taita Taveta said there was no problem if the exercise was led by experts who knew where the boundary was.
He said, however, it would have been better if all elected leaders in the region had been involved in an all-inclusive exercise.
It was not clear whether the agreement and resurveying created new boundaries or reinforced old ones, he said.
“Changing boundaries involves Article 188 of the Constitution. There was need to bring on board all leaders,” he said.
How it happened
Two committees of 11 people each from the two counties were picked to start the process of surveying the boundary after identifying beacons along a 10km stretch from Njukini to the Kenya-Tanzania border.
They included two land CECs from each side. Representatives from the national government serving on both sides were involved in the mapping.
The team of the 22 people also agreed to build a road along the boundary of Kajiado and Taita Taveta because beacons would not be permanent.
The disputed land within 10km from the border of Kenya and Tanzania has already been re-surveyed by Kajiado and Taita Taveta county surveyors.
“Beacons have been placed along the 10 km stretch. Our neighbours agreed to move after governors Samboja and Lenku agreed on a plan to relocate them,” Sitelu from Rombo Group Ranch said.
The group ranch recently received approval from the Ministry of Lands to subdivide it for more than 8,000 members, up from the original 3,655 members.
Membership increased after members decided to subdivide their portions of the group ranch for their children, with approval of Kajiado’s department of Lands headed by Hamilton Parseina.
During the signing of the accord, Parseina and his Taita Taveta counterpart, Mwandawiro Mghanga, supported the deal.
Security
Taita Taveta MP Naomi Shaban said the issue of the Rombo Group Ranch had become a security problem because of fears residents in Njukini might be ordered to vacate the land after the exercise.
She said that in the 20 years she has been an MP, there was never a boundary dispute between Kajiado and Taita Taveta counties.
“What existed was a disagreement within the ranch over the boundary,” Shaban said, noting the Rombo ranch straddles Taita Taveta and Kajiado counties.
Each part of the ranch in each county has a separate title deed, she said.
The dispute was between the two sections of the ranch about the location of the boundary separating them, the MP said.
She warned that if the matter was not handled carefully, it was likely to cause more tension. She called upon the leaders to insist on the peaceful coexistence of communities in the region.
(Edited by V. Graham)
