Kenya blocks Ugandan company from mining limestone

The Managing Director of Kerio Valley Development Authority, Dr Mike Parklea and the District Commissioner for West Pokot District, Amos Gathecha recently made a joint statement outlining why Kenya did not approve a request by Tororo Cement Industry (TCI) of Uganda to extract limestone in Pokot district and export it back to Uganda. According to the officials, a local cement manufacturing company was in the works and would be given first priority access to the natural resource.This is interesting because the same line of thought does not seem to apply to the Maasai and their fight to control naturally occurring soda ash in their own backyard around Lake Magadi. The Magadi Soda Company is majority-owned by Tata Chemicals of India through it’s majority stake in Brunner Mond, a British chemical company and the parent company of Magadi Soda company.For over a hundred years, through the assistance of the British government and the 1911 Anglo-Maasai Agreement, which some argue was used to illegally occupy vast chunks of their land, the Maasai have seen depletion of natural resources by British companies to this day but have not given up the fight to make this enterprise sustainable to the local community.