Re: Yala Swamp aka Dominion Group

John Vorster,

As you read the report from Timothy and Chris, there are certain issues I want to address to you. This is the truth, the whole truth, nothing from the truth, so help me God.

It is a known fact that luck of support, either from individuals or the government, has led to very little direct foreign investment in Kenya, more so in Nyanza and Western Provinces.. This kind of less support is reminiscent in phantom plants across Kenya; we have abandoned sugar plantations in Nyanza, Western and Coast provinces, abandoned cashew nut plantations in Coast province, failed irrigation projects in Nyanza and Coast provinces, and many more. All viable projects declared unviable by retrogressive activists.

Again, in the recent past, we all saw when Molasses plant could not go on in Kisumu. The project was conceived when Hon Mwai Kibaki was the Finance Minister, and declared moribund by Prof George Saitoti, when he was Finance Minister. An individual investor bought it under auction, and has turned it around. Was it really not feasible? If an individual can revamp the Molasses Plant, could the government have failed? Do you see what I see?

We have seen motley of investments in Nyanza shut down, whether they were also not feasible, I do not know. Kenya Breweries shut down their plant in Kisumu, simply because it was offering employment to the people of that area, not because beer could not sell. Employees of the said plant had to live in decent houses, and be part of the general development of Kisumu. But by shutting down Kenya Breweries, those of us who invested in housing were given one sure deathblow. And this was meant to consign Kisumu to a dead city. Do you read any conspiracy?

Kicomi was equally killed, when busy bodies discouraged cotton growing in Nyanza. The end result, the peasant farmers who used to rely on cotton to take their children to school, gave up. The children ended up as fishermen, for the male, or prostitutes and house helps, for girls. Again, do you read any conspiracy? Or to you, this was just as fine.

And people who make the loudest noise about environmental impact assessments actively cheered this on. Do we eat environmental impact assessments? Can that take our children to school, and put for us food on the table? Can luck of investment make us pay our rents, or build our own homes?

By killing all investments in Nyanza, are we doing the right thing? How do we create employment by killing such investments?

But compare this to the investors in Central Kenya. Both the people and the government motivate them. Coffee farmers in Central always benefit from loan write offs from the Central government, something that has never been extended to the sugarcane farmers in Nyanza and Western.

In Central Kenya, we have big foreign investors like Del Monte, Kakuzi, Sasini and others. These people are doing exactly what Dominion is doing in Nyanza. But I have never heard any locals making noise about the so-called environmental impact assessment. But for Nyanza, our own people are paid peanuts, to make as much noise, to scuttle foreign investments in our midst.

The end result will be, Dominion Group abandoning Nyanza, and setting base in Central Province, and then the mercenaries on hire shall have done their job well, and consigned our people to eternal poverty.

All Kenyans of good will must condemn the John Vorster, the Paula Palmer, the Chris Owalla, the Odindo Abuonji of this world. All churchmen must pray to God to make them see the reality of their actions.

We must not loose anymore direct foreign investments in our land because, some busy bodies are being paid to scuttle viable projects. We must all stand firm in support of Dominion Group.

We must all do away with economic policies centered on policy paper number 10 of 1965.

Odhiambo T Oketch