South Rift MPs Now Affirm Commitment to ODM

It was widely reported a few days ago that ODM MPs from the South Rift the Hon Franklin Bett, Hon Magerer Langat, Hon Dr Joyce Laboso and the Hon Beatrice Kones  had resigned from Ad-hoc Committee on Mau Forest Complex evictees resettlement.

Prime Minister Raila Odinga, Roads Minister Franklin Bett and Energy Assistant Magerer Langat during a meeting with leaders of the people who were evicted from Mau Forest at the Premier's office

It turns out today that these were a distortion by media and while resentment does exist on the status of the yet to be settled evictees, the MPs have not resigned from any committee nor made plans to defect to any other party.

Earlier today, the four MPs led  representatives of over five thousand families that were evicted from Mau Forest three years ago into a meeting with Prime Minister Raila Odinga in his office in Nairobi. The MPs denied that they had resigned from the committee and warned politicians to keep off the issue of reseetlement of Mau evicteed and forthwith stop dragging the name of the Prime Minister into the matter. The meeting was organised by Lands Minister James Orengo, who was reported they had blamed for failing to disburse the Mau resettlement funds.

The MPs also publicly declared that they never had any plans to ditch ODM for any another political party.

Hon Langat had earlier condemned reports of plans to defect from ODM and instead blamed the stories on media fabrication and called them simply “mere speculation”, adding that his support and that of the Kipkelion people for the candidature of Prime Minister Raila Odinga, who is also the ODM leader, was still intact.