Mombasa-Mariakani road project, Kenya

Project background

The Government of Kenya, through the Kenya National Highways Authority (KeNHA) plans the rehabilitation and expansion of 41.7 km road between Mombasa and Mariakani in Eastern Kenya, which forms part of the Northern Road Corridor.

This almost 2,000 km long Corridor connects the Port of Mombasa directly to the landlocked countries of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and forms an essential connection to South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and parts of northern Tanzania.

The project will impact homes, businesses and farms along the 41.7 kilometre stretch.

Forced evictions in Jomvu, May 2015

Large tracts of land in Mombasa County are occupied by people who do not have a legally recognised right to the land. Parts of two of the many informal settlements, Jomvu and Bangladesh are on land alongside the A 109 in the area where the highway will be expanded.

As reported by Amnesty International in their report ,em>Driven out from development, in January 2015, scores of residents and business owners in Jomvu informal settlement received 30-day eviction notices from the Kenya National Highways Authority (KeNHA) informing them that their homes and businesses occupied public land reserved for road construction. Their structures were also marked for demolition with yellow crosses.

People in Jomvu told Amnesty International that they had not been consulted about the proposed evictions and, beyond the notices, had received no information on the eviction process, resettlement or compensation.

In the night of 17th of May 2015 forced and unlawful evictions of more than 100 inhabitants of informal settlements along the A 109 highway in Jomvu (km 10+700 to km 11+ 450) took place. Between 11pm and midnight, residents of Jomvu were woken by the arrival of a bulldozer accompanied by scores of armed police. According to eyewitnesses, the bulldozer systematically demolished shops and homes that bore yellow crosses.

On 13 Aug 2015, KeNHA organised a public sensitisation meeting, during which it admitted they had carried out the demolitions and indicated that they would consider providing some form of remedy. During the meeting, KeNHA representatives informed people about the existence of the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) and the Resettlement Action Plan (RAP) for the project and also summarised the main aspects of them. This was the first time that a majority of the people had heard about these documents.

KeNHA representatives did not provide any details about the amounts for compensation and how these would be determined. KeNHA asked forcedly evicted people to establish a committee to calculate their lossess and present it to KeNHA for consideration. The meeting was not in line with the criteria for genuine consultation as envisaged by international human rights standards.

Reaction of the banks

The AfDB and EIB were unaware of the May forced evictions until Amnesty International informed them about the case in June 2015. EIB approved the loan on 21 July 2015, about 2 months after the evictions, at a time when KeNHA had not taken any steps to provide the victims with effective remedies, and even though AI brought the forced evictions to the notice of the EIB.

Following a joint monitoring mission of the lenders in Sept 2015 KeNHA called for a ‘civil society consultation meeting’ with the project’s funders. At the meeting, KeNHA took responsibility for the forced evictions and agreed to put in place a remedy process and to provide compensation until the end of the year 2015. It also committed not to carry out further forced evictions anywhere in the project area.

KeNHA and the funders clarified that the available Resettlement Action Plan is not final and still needs to be brought into compliance with the banks’ safeguards policies. During the meeting, the EIB also confirmed, that forced evictions are a ‘no go’ zone for the lenders.

Next steps

In the Final Audit Report published in March 2016 by KeNHA, 94 structure owners have been indentified for compensation. It was not clear, how the compensation amounts were established in the audit. Some people for instance received about USD 80 as a compensation. According to Amnesty International, there are about 170 people, who should be in some way compensated due to the evictions. In Sept 2016, a Corrective Action Plan (CAP) for the evictees was developed.

During its visit in Dec 2016, a Bankwatch team conducted a series of meetings with tenants, owners, women and Committees noting that a proper consultation of the Corrective Action Plan had not happened. We addressed our concerns in a joint letter (pdf) to all the financiers that was signed by local and European organisations monitoring the project.

In response the EIB underlined the innovative approach of the bank, as all people are planned to be compensated, also those without receipts on the basis of “average compensation of those with receipts”. This, however, is not an innovation, but a standard according to the EIB’s own handbook.

The bank stated that of the signing of the contract with KeNHA is postponed until both CAP and RAP have been finalised. The bank also promised that the resettlement will take place in stages and compensation will be pre-paid Road sections will only be given to the contractor after compensation and resettlement have been implemented.

As of July 2017, the Resettlement Action Plan is still under revision. In the meantime trials on intimidation took place, which we have also addressed to the banks.

The banks should ensure that KeNHA provides for an inclusive and transparent process of genuine consultations on the proposed CAP and revised RAP, paying special attention to the full participation of women and single headed households.