The Anchor October 2011: Yatta Canal

Storm brewing over use

of water in Yatta Canal

By Anchor Reporter

AN Effort to narrow the differences between the Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka and Yatta MP Charles Kilonzo has resulted into a row over the Yatta Canal.

Mr Kilonzo, besides demanding that the VP establishes a credible team to guide him on the campaign path to be President of Kenya, also demanded that the VP ensures a smooth flow of water from the canal through the VP’s Yatta Farm, and back to the canal for locals to  irrigate their farms.

Sources who attended the meeting say though the VP was eager to reconcile with Mr Kilonzo, it was the demands that the Yatta MP came with that made the VP see an expense in the reconciliation effort.

Mr Kilonzo, like many other would be supporters of the VP feel that Mr Musyoka associates himself with people who delude him all the time, making his campaign to be President falter. “H is henchmen are driven first by self interest and not the interest of the community. They seek to line up their pockets and protect the VP’s camp from growing and this alone alienates many wealthy kamba professionals who find the VP inaccessible”, said a source that attended the meeting.

It is a wide-spread belief that the VP seeks to work with people who can not face him and tell him the truth on anything. Sycophantic henchmen, it is believed, are the fellows with the best chance of surrounding the VP since he is much exited by followers who are all too willing to fight physically for him.

An MP who pleaded not to be named cited a case of two former MPs who the VP loved to work with no matter how much they kept away other supporters and indicated that the VP once identified former Kangundo MP Moffat Maitha as one such character who seemed ready for throw punches at the VP’s critics to defend him.

At the meeting, Mr Kilonzo raised the issue of the Yatta Canal, saying that residents were complaining that water was not flowing to them once it flows into Yatta Farm.The water situation was so grave because residents of Matuu were crying of no water, yet water was flowing along the canal.

In response, the VP is said to have distanced himself from tempering with the water flow, saying he had sunk two boreholes and constructed five dams within his farm, hence he had no use for the water flowing in the canal.

However residents ae questioning why once water flows into his farm, it hardly reaches his neighbours. The VP is said to have followed the discussion with a letter to Yatta DC Mr J Oyangi to explain the situation as he sees it.

But sources along the pipeline say they suspect that water from the canal is most likely diverted to fill the dams in Yatta Farm. Besides, they complain that a 16 inch pipe siphons water from the furrow, an amount that would not leave enough water to flow down stream.

Besides, the meeting between the Yatta MP Charles Kilonzo, a group of professionals  with the VP  his  Yatta Home has met resistance from locals who warn the VP of politically associating himself with the rebel turn friend.

Mr Kilonzo is seen as having decamped to Raila’s ODM party and was allegedly behind a group of politicians who met the premier at his rural home in Bondo early this year. The group was led by former KNUT national treasurer Peter Mutulu and civic leaders allied to the MP. On return the leaders converged and declared their support for Raila decamping from the wiper party.