Nairobi blames ministry cartels for land theft

City Hall, Nairobi. PHOTO | SALATON NJAU 

In Summary

• County says its officers only act on instructions from the government to either demolish or okay building of properties.

By JAMES KARIUKI

The Nairobi City County Government has disowned lease renewals, claiming cartels at the Lands ministry headquarters are depriving hapless citizens of prime land.

County secretary, Dr Robert Ayisi, said they only act upon instructions from the ministry to approve demolition and building plans for multi-billion shilling properties that have sprung up on land whose lease had expired.

“We wrote to the Lands Ministry for a list of leases renewed after it emerged some people used dubious means to evict lawful landowners only to dispose the land to unsuspecting developers who are now at risk of losing multi-billion shilling properties,” he said.

Dr Ayisi said the cartels working in cahoots with senior ministry officials moved with speed and forged the county’s development plans where existing buildings were condemned paving the way for demolition and subsequent construction of new multi-storeyed structures.

Speaking in Nairobi during a meeting attended by Lands Cabinet Secretary, Prof Joseph Kaimenyi, Interior CS Joseph Nkaissery and his ICT counterpart Joe Mucheru, the county secretary said time had come for them to be involved in renewal of leases to avert further incidents where citizens have had their properties seized.

National Land Commission Vice chairperson Abigail Mbagaya said many families had filed complaints with the commission following threats of evictions.

“Some people never knew their leases had expired but learnt of it when a group of goons waving a court order stormed their premises backed by police officers to effect eviction. Courts need to consider all sides before issuing eviction orders.

“Why would a court be moved on forged papers and proceed to grant an eviction application? The best way to safeguard such problems will be for courts to demand that all parties be served for an inter parte hearing,” she said.

Prof Kaimenyi said county governments had been accused of sanctioning evictions of hapless Kenyans from prime parcels and warned that such behaviour would not be tolerated. He said devolved units had no powers to issue orders on eviction and allocation of land.

“A taskforce will be formed this month to review all lease renewals, extensions and cancellations. I promise you any civil servants found to have used a flawed process to effect the changes will be fired and prosecuted,” he said.

Mr Mucheru said since Nairobi had its lands registry records digitised, it will be easy to track whose pin was used to access the land records and make the changes that necessitated issuance of a new lease.

“Just like IFMIS at Treasury and use of technology at Kenya National Examination Commission, we shall use technology to pin the culprits giving the Lands ministry a bad name,” he said.

jkariuki@ke.nationmedia.com