The mushrooming of sugar industry in Enoosaen, Transmara in Narok County brought with it good tidings, but the allure of quick money enticed residents to either lease or sell land to sugar barons, leaving them impoverished after squandering the proceeds.
Prices of land shot up from about Sh30,000 per acre to between Sh150,000 and Sh750,000, depending on the location and proximity to the Transmara Sugar Factory.
More than six years later, the same size of land goes for about Sh3 million and it is still appreciating. Leasehold for the same size is now between Sh200,000 per year and Sh500,000, depending on location.
‘When he received the money, he became mad’
However, the adage ‘when the deal is too sweet, think twice’, hangs in the air like a putrid smell.
Some of the people who sold their land or leased them to individuals are living in squalor after squandering their money. Some were forced to sell of their herds of cattle, they once valued because there was no land for grazing.
Stephen ole Kapen, 67, a father of 13 leased his 75 acres in 2014 to an investor from Ruiru, Kiambu County for 33 years and is now miserable after splurging the money.
In 2015, after he was given the last tranche of money, he was told to move out until the leasehold ends, forcing him to rent a two-roomed house in Kilgoris Trading Centre.
His wife, Emily Nashipai blamed him for leasing the family only land for many years and spending almost all of the money on women, leaving her to fend for the expanded family.
“When he received the money, he became mad. He left us and returned when he was broke. He only informed me that he had leased the land when the investor came knocking, asking us to leave to pave way for sugarcane plantation. I couldn’t believe it. I cried but nobody, even our village elder could help us,” said Nashipai as she holds on to a grandson.
She said it was a painful experience but she accepted and moved out with all their belongings, including cows, which were later sold in a cattle auction in Kilgoris. “I thought I was dreaming, but it was a reality. I don’t know if I will return to our land ever again. Thirty-three years is long considering I’m approaching 50 years,” she said with a haunted look on her face.
Nashipai said she knows many people from Enoosaen, Keiyan and adjacent areas who also sold their land after sugar money became too sweet. She said because of poor planning, her children and grandchildren who were in school dropped out.
‘I thought in the pubs, I would get ideas from other revellers’
A weather-beaten Kapen said he never thought that money would run out before he utilised it properly and the thought of where his family would live after the person who leased the land came, never crossed his mind at the time.
“I thought in the pubs, I would get ideas from other revellers. I spent lavishly without knowing I will run out of money within a short time,” he said, without revealing how much he was paid. His friends and relatives and bar owners, however, said he might have been paid about Sh6 million, based on the accounts he gives them.
“It was a lot of money. He used taxis all the time, smoked pipes and expensive cigarettes. Women from as far as Nairobi arrived in taxis he paid for. He drunk expensive spirits and wines. He was a generous man,” said Saitoti Ngeiwa, a proprietor of a nightclub in Kilgoris.
‘Added more wives’
Another man, Lobo ole Kuntai, 28, from Keiyan area rented out 45 acres of land he inherited from his late father, Lepore ole Kuntai for 21 years, but used the proceeds to marry two wives in a span of two years.
Though he was reluctant to state how much he was given by a farmer from Kehancha in July 2017, he said he regrets not taking his time before renting it out because those who waited got a better deal.
“Unlike others, I didn’t engage services of a lawyer. I sometimes regret the decision, because I think I was given a raw deal. But in retrospect, I get comfort from the fact that I couldn’t have married my wives, if I was landless,” he said.
Kuntai, a primary school dropout, boasts of marrying a primary school teacher and a daughter of a respected chief. The person who rented his land gave him a small portion in the corner of the land along the Kilgoris-Shankoi road, to build a temporary house and employed him as his watchman.
“He told me to bring down my house and showed me where to set up a new compound. Unlike others who came and rented land, he was humane because he didn’t throw me out. He employed me as a watchman. Though the job is demeaning, I have to do it to feed my family and educate my three children who are still in primary school,” he said.
‘Wooed by tycoon with drinks’
The same script played out for Daniel Kuluo, 70, who is married to two wives with 16 children and several grandchildren as he didn’t plan how to utilise about Sh2 million he was paid when a company belonging to a rich Asian from Kisumu bought his land just when sugarcane farming was introduced in Transmara.
His relatives said Kuluo, who does not have a permanent abode, failed to take advice from them to take his time before selling his family land.
“The buyer used to take him out to Kisii or Kisumu to buy him drinks and gifts. He could spend days out of his home. Whenever he came back, his people enjoyed good food he could entertain friends a whole week. That happened until he confided to one of his friends that he was selling his land to an Asian tycoon,” Dominic Mpeti, his maternal cousin said.
After the land transactions were sealed in 2012 at Kilgoris Land Registry and he was paid the balance, he changed his phone number and could not be reached by his family and relatives.
“His family is scattered around Transmara with some of his sons working as cane cutters and two daughters working as housemaids. One of his wives died while he was away and the other lives with her elder brother, a politician. Peter Magiroi, an age set elder from Nkuraro area, said when locals embraced sugarcane farming, they inadvertently embraced poverty and breaking up of family units.
“Majority are not regretting why they abandoned cattle keeping for sugarcane farming. Because of favourable weather throughout the year, and good soils, we harvest between 1,000 tonnes to 7,000 tonnes per acre a year,” said Saiwa.
‘Getting rich’
The factory pays farmers Sh4,000 per tonne, he said, adding that sugarcane from the area has high sucrose content.
Before Transmara factory was established, he says, they used to take their cane to Sony and Ndhiwa sugar factories in Nyanza, which he claims used to delay payments.
Most farmers, he said earn good money with the highest getting about Sh7 million for only one delivery.
“The good prices have resulted in rapid expansion of land under the crop. Some people have sold all their cattle to give way for sugarcane farming,” said Saiwa.
He said the community decided to look for an investor to build a factory after Sony and Ndhiwa were overwhelmed by deliveries from the area and in Nyanza growing zones.
“There were delays in receiving the crop and payments. Crops used to take more than twenty-four months to be harvested, which reduced their value and sucrose, “ said Saiwa.
The factory now serves between 50,000 to 65,000 farmers from the area and former districts of Gucha and Migori.
He said the factory employs about 60 percent locals, reducing unemployment in the larger Transmara.
Locals, he added have embraced education and are using the crop proceeds to educate their children
