Recently in Kenya, a dam located on private farmland where flowers, macadamia nuts and coffee are grown, burst after heavy rains in the area. The Patel dam was one of a number of dams on a sprawling farm near Solai, but none of the dams had a permit according to a Water Resources Management Authority spokesman. Despite the farm manager’s denial of any wrongdoing, there were complaints about the safety of the dam which were largely dismissed. There are fears that the death toll, currently at 50, may continue to rise after the destruction of power lines, homes and buildings carried away by the fast-running water. After the Solai dam tragedy there is a question of accountability on the side of the government, and the owner of the dam, after failing to take necessary steps to protect the people living next to the dam. This tragedy also sheds light on the puzzling nature of landownership in Kenya. It is well known that political families in Kenya own large tracts of the most productive land. A survey in 2014 found that 50% of Kenya’s wealth is in the hands of political families, with the ownership of land providing the core of this wealth, which raises a conflict of interest in regulating privately owned assets when they belong to those in power. The skewed ownership of land has created an accumulation of power and profit that exploits the people who work on such farms as the one in Solai. There seems to be little accountability when such tragedies strike and this enables us to understand the perils of asset privatization in the hands of the few. The negligence of government officials to regulate land owners in Kenya leaves the subsistence farms to shoulder the burden. For one, there should have been better planning to account for extreme weather when a privately-owned dam was built in the middle of human settlements in an area that experiences flooding. Government abandonment of its responsibilities leads to reduced social investment such as the maintenance of infrastructure leading to a dam that burst and destroyed life and property within a one mile radius. While the government’s abandonment of its role to prevent this tragedy could have happened in other cases, poor people routinely pay the price for it. It demonstrates a disregard for the lives of such people as the residents around the Patel dam. The Solai dam tragedy has also sparked discussions between the public and the government on the potential measures in place to support victims of a similar tragedy, which turned out to be few after the government opened a pay bill account on MPesa to raise funds for the victims. Many have criticized the government for asking the public to contribute funds when it was meant to have emergency funds for cases like this, especially in contrast to spending Sh1.2 billion to purchase a house for an ambassador in Geneva. The question of urgency and responsibility highlights the severe inequality between land-owners and subsistence farmers when the government doesn’t strike the balance. The Solai dam tragedy will, hopefully, increase pressure on land owners to promote socially responsible business. This will remind the government the need for regulating land owners, and being a mediator between them and subsistence farmers.
