Cost of Kerio banditry: Multimillion-shilling projects abandoned
Locals fleeing from the troubled Sinoni Village in Baringo South to other safer villages due to flare-ups that led to the killing of more than four people in the area on March 4 and 5, 2022.
Deteriorating insecurity has prompted the Kerio Valley Development Authority (KVDA) to close down multimillion-shilling projects estimated at Sh1 billion, including a food security programme after bandits vandalised equipment.
The closure and subsequent relocation of the KVDA livestock breeding centre in the Kerio Valley following bandit attacks have brought to the fore the huge economic costs of escalating insecurity.
The agency shut down the livestock multiplication centre, besides abandoning an irrigation scheme because criminals were targeting its property.
More than 80 people have died in the past six months in Elgeyo Marakwet alone, with hundred others maimed.
Now, hunger is ravaging the tense population. Thousands of livestock have also been stolen.
While the government has announced a security operation to get rid of illegal guns and arrest perpetrators of attacks, the bloodletting continues unabated, with political leaders now demanding the deployment of the Kenya Defense Forces (KDF) to the ground.
Police officers in armoured personnel carriers escort a security team in a convoy of four-wheel-drive vehicles during a tour of volatile Kasiela in Baringo South Sub-county on March 8, 2022. Rift Valley Regional Commissioner Maalim Mohamed unveiled 80 police reservists who will be deployed to Baringo South and Baringo North to supplement efforts by regular officers following persistent banditry attacks in the region.
On Friday, suspected bandits from a neighbouring county, for the third time in a row, raided the Chesongoch livestock breeding centre and stole 68 pedigree gala goats, though some were recovered later. They had earlier stolen 32 others but 17 were recovered, only to be stolen in the subsequent attack.
The attack dealt a blow to the two-decade-old breeding centre that had been credited for improving local goat breeds because the bandits, after stealing animals, vandalised equipment.
“We have closed down the farm whose objective was to enhance food security and income by improving local goat breeds. The recovered goats have since been relocated to Chemeron farm in Marigat, Baringo County,” said KVDA Managing Director Sammy Naporos.
“The 100-acre centre will now be utilised for pasture development and large-scale apiary demonstration now that banditry has impeded livestock keeping,” he said.
He said the menacing bandits, besides stealing the goats, also vandalised the centre and carted away fencing posts and chain-link wire, completely destroying it.
“Our Chepkum irrigation farm is also inaccessible at the moment after bandits vandalised it and carted away fencing equipment. The farm is no longer serving its intended purpose but has been used as a battlefield,” he said.
Also affected is the Sh60 million Tot mango factory, whose operations were suspended after staff fled for fear of being attacked. “The situation has slowed our operations in a big way,” Mr Naporos said.
The projects had significantly improved security in the area and the retrogressive practice of cattle rustling had subsided as residents engaged in farming activities, with the schemes creating a buffer zone between the warring the communities.
With the region’s economy riding the reverse gear, it is uncertain when the dust of conflict will finally settle for the abandoned projects to be revived.
Besides the two irrigation schemes, the Sh300 million African Development Bank Kabonon/Kapkamak irrigation scheme has been down for a year now.
“No one dares to go into the scheme to till the farm because of fear of attacks. Three thousand people directly benefited from the 2,000-hectare farm … People are now starving and the situation is getting out of hand if nothing is done,” said Mr Leonard Yano, a former secretary at the scheme.
Travellers cruise along Isiolo-Moyale highway at Logologo area in Marsabit county. Two police officers thwarted a potentially fatal highway banditry attack along the highway.
In the same area, the Sh20 million, 700-hectare Kapsawach irrigation scheme that benefited over 1,200 families is now covered in shrubs, with bandits using it as a hideout.
Some 20km away, near the infamous Kapkobil battlefield, lies the abandoned Chepuser/Kapkobil irrigation scheme funded by the World Bank through the Kenya Devolution Support Programme (KDSP) to the tune of Sh42.5 million.
The contractor abandoned the project when bandit attacks increased and it has since stalled.
On the boundary of Elgeyo Marakwet and Baringo counties, near the Koloa bridge, there is the 1,000-acre Tot-Koloa irrigation scheme, now a relic after it was abandoned several years ago.
The Sh300 million Kenya Red Cross-funded project, which had offered hope to locals by providing food and helping communities coexist peacefully, has been lying in ruins following the unrelenting deadly bandit attacks and cattle rustling.
Bushes and vandalised water pipelines now dot the once vibrant scheme, which was lush with an assortment of food crops as brazen bandits converted the field into a battleground.
Mr Richard Ruto, a resident of Tot in Marakwet East, recalled how the Kenya Red Cross-funded scheme had changed the Kerio Valley story but was abandoned after the destruction of crops by the two feuding communities.
Jennifer Chesaro holds the only goat she was left with following a raid by armed bandits at her homestead in Kagir village in Baringo North on January 18.
“At the onset, there was peaceful coexistence between the Marakwet and Pokot communities, which the scheme boosted as the communities interacted frequently on the farms. At the moment, everything is abandoned and residents are living on handouts as insecurity continues to tear apart the region,” he lamented.
He said food was bountiful in the region and the scheme yielded enough so that there were surpluses to sell in markets in Koloa, Tot, Chesegon and Lomut.
“The socio-economic activities are grinding to a halt. The scheme directly benefited 500 households from each of the two communities but at the moment life is becoming harder each passing day,” he said.
“We were relieved when the irrigation scheme was established, but now we do not get any food or income because the field is a battleground.”
Mr Naporos, the KVDA boss, said insecurity in the Kerio Valley is mainly caused by shared resources and diversifying the socioeconomic activities of the communities is one mitigation measure.
Locals say vandalising mega projects and destroying property is meant to sabotage economic activities.
“What we are now witnessing is similar to the attacks of the 2000s when bandits on a raiding spree had a habit of invading our farms and harvesting cassava. To date, no one cultivates cassava, because of the heavy losses they incurred,” said Mr Moses Chesire.
Mr Chesire said residents now fear the bandits are hell-bent on sabotaging the economy of the region, which thrives mainly on mango cultivation.
And it is not only mangoes the bandits have destroyed. They have carted away or destroyed over 1,000 beehives.
“Some people ventured into beekeeping but the bandits have not spared that either. They harvest the honey and steal the hives and those that they cannot carry are destroyed on the spot. We have reported all this to the police and we fear the bandits want to shift the boundary,” he said.
A majority of the irrigation schemes produced maize, sorghum, millet, green grams, watermelons, and vegetables, among other food crops, significantly alleviating food insecurity in the area and generating incomes for locals through the sale of surplus yields.
Hopelessness is rife as interventions from the Church, political elite, professionals and elders have all failed to bear fruit.
With the Centre for Counter-Terrorism, KVDA has launched livelihood programmes in honey production, pasture development and micro-enterprises in Tiaty as one way of diversifying economic investment and possibly reduce cattle rustling, Mr Naporos said.
Elgeyo Marakwet Governor Alex Tolgos said his administration had launched several multimillion-shilling irrigation projects but they had stalled because of insecurity.
“The contractors have abandoned the sites because of the deteriorating insecurity in the Kerio Valley. We lost an agricultural officer who was shot by bandits and this has scared most of the staff from operating in the region,” he said.
He said the stalled projects would have allowed locals to engage in crop farming away from the predominant animal rearing, which has been a major source of conflict.
The collapse of development projects in the Kerio Valley due to banditry was increasing insecurity in the region, Gender Chief Administrative Secretary Linah Jebii Kilimo.
Elgeyo Marakwet County Deputy Governor Wisley Rotich addresses the press in Eldoret town, Uasin Gishu County on January 15, 2022. He said in the last five and half months 62 people have been killed in Marakwet East Sub Countyin banditry attacks.
“It is only through the economic empowerment of communities living in the Kerio Valley that they will be able to change their lifestyles and abandon cattle rustling,” she observed.
“The national and county governments should prioritise the revival of the collapsed projects, as well as focus on education in the marginalised areas.”
