"Locals demand fast compensation for fluorspar mining land"

Residents whose land was taken for extraction of fluoride in at Kerio Valley almost 50 years ago are yet to be compensated. The landowners surrendered some 9,070 acres to the Kenya Fluorspar Mining Company in the 1970s. The mining company ceased operations at Kerio Valley three years ago. Under Kimwarer Sugutek Community lobby group, the more than 1,400 families, through their representatives, yesterday said the allocated Sh1 billion for compensation issued last year by the Government was 'too little'. 

One of the land owners, Joseph Kosgei, said his two-acre farm which he inherited from his father was now an opencast mine. “I have not been compensated after the Government acquired the land in the 1970s, decades before the company came,” he said. Kosgei, 62, said they are tired of successive governments' promises to expedite their compensation. “We need money and it is a pity that the company closed without us receiving any compensation,” he said. Kimwarer Sugutek Community lobby group chairman Joseph Kandie said they were waiting for new National Land Commission (NLC) commissioners to take office to fast-track the compensation.