Politics and policy
Former Lugari MP Cyrus Jirongo. CBK wants to auction Jirongo's land over
a Sh20 billion loan he allegedly owes it. PHOTO | FILE
By BRIAN WASUNA, bwasuna@ke.nationmedia.com
In Summary
- A group of squatters under Ruai Embakasi Youth United Development Organisation wants the High Court to nullify Mr Jirongo’s title deed and declare it the valid owner of the 1,000-acre piece of land.
- The land is at the centre of another case between the former Lugari MP and the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK).
- The CBK wants to auction the land to recover a Sh20 billion loan M Jirongo took from Postbank Credit Limited (now in liquidation) in 1993.
Former Cabinet minister Cyrus Jirongo’s fight to
retain ownership of a 1, 000 acre piece of land in Nairobi’s Ruai area
has taken a new turn after a group of squatters laid claim to the prime
property valued at Sh7 billion.
The land, owned by Mr Jirongo’s Offshore Trading Company, is
at the centre of another case between the former Lugari MP and the
Central Bank of Kenya (CBK).
The CBK wants to auction the land to recover a Sh20
billion loan M Jirongo took from Postbank Credit Limited (now in
liquidation) in 1993.
Court papers indicate that Offshore charged the
land as part security to help to Sololo Outlets, another firm owned by
Mr Jirongo, to acquire Sh1 billion loan – a debt that has climbed to
Sh20 billion as a result of high interest rates that prevailed in the
1990s and that have compounded over the years.
Interest rates on bank loans rose to as high as 30 per cent between 1990 and 1998.
In the new twist, a group of squatters under Ruai
Embakasi Youth United Development Organisation (Reyuda) wants the High
Court to nullify Mr Jirongo’s title deed and declare it the valid owner
of the massive tract of land.
The squatters hold that they have occupied the land
since 1993, and that they have since developed it considerably. Mr.
Jirongo claims that he was extorted Sh1 million by one of the squatters’
leaders to have the case dropped.
Ruai area has some of Nairobi’s most convoluted
land divisions with many cases of double allocations, squatter-dumping
by politicians into private properties, and invasion and acquisition of
Settlement Fund Trustee (SFT) land by grabbers.
It is this mishmash that the High Court will try
and unravel. In its court papers, the squatter group claims to have been
in continuous and exclusive occupation of the land since 1993 without
any interference.
“Since 1993 Reyuda has carried out significant
developments on the land in the form of residential houses, a school, a
health facility and a police station,” the organisation says.
Under Kenyan law, a citizen can be declared the
valid owner of a piece of land if they have occupied it for more than 12
years without any opposition.
The squatters say they have enjoyed occupation of the land for 22 years, and should now be declared its valid owners.
The squatters insist that Mr Jirongo has never
legally raised issue with their occupancy of the land, but that he has
on occasion used armed goons to scare them off the property.
Mr Jirongo has, however, denied the allegations
that he has on occasion hired thugs to evict the squatters, and says
that a section of Reyuda officials led by one Frederick Chege Mwangi
swindled him of Sh1 million in an attempted out-of- court settlement.
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