Summary
- It emerged that Solio Construction Company Limited, which was partly owned by Mr Moi, was given the land for free in 1999 in an irregular transfer signed by land officials while the property remained under Mayer Jacob Samuels, an Israeli who died in 1974.
- Uchumi, through its investment vehicle Kasarani Mall, said it paid Solio Sh85 million in 2001 for the land, which the Kenya Defence Forces has now taken over.
- The committee established that the rightful owner of the land was Mr Samuels, adding that the Moi firm was seemingly allocated the land for free before expiry of the Israeli’s lease.
The late former President Daniel Moi and his associates
fraudulently acquired two titles to a Sh2.3 billion land in Nairobi’s
Roysambu area which they used to sell the property to Uchumi
Supermarkets
and take a loan from Barclays Bank of Kenya, the predecessor to Absa Bank Kenya
.
A
report by the National Assembly’s Departmental Committee on Lands
reveals that the retail chain, banks, churches and the Kenya Defence
Forces are among a group of victims that are staring at major losses
from multiple fraudulent dealings on the a 17-acre land.
It
emerged that Solio Construction Company Limited, which was partly owned
by Mr Moi, was given the land for free in 1999 in an irregular transfer
signed by land officials while the property remained under Mayer Jacob
Samuels, an Israeli who died in 1974.
Uchumi, through
its investment vehicle Kasarani Mall, said it paid Solio Sh85 million in
2001 for the land, which the Kenya Defence Forces has now taken over.
The
committee established that the rightful owner of the land was Mr
Samuels, adding that the Moi firm was seemingly allocated the land for
free before expiry of the Israeli’s lease.
Mr Samuels owned the land on a 99-year lease that expired on
November 1, 2003, but the former President and his cronies acquired it
earlier and flipped it to Uchumi in 2001.
“The
purported transfer of lease to Solio Construction Limited was done when
there was already a subsisting lease of 99 years which was to expire in
2003 and the transfer was effected in 2001, two years before the expiry
of the lease,” the report says.
“The Chief Land
Registrar, Ms Sarah Mwenda, denied signing the transfer form
transferring the parcel of land LR 5875/2 from Solio Construction
Company Limited to Kasarani Mall Limited in 2001, although a stamp
bearing her unique number (14) was used in the said form.”
The
committee also discovered that Solio had acquired a separate title to
the same property acquired on May 18, 1992 and which was used to take a
loan of undisclosed amount from Barclays Bank of Kenya.
This
technically means that Uchumi was sold a fake property. Uchumi, which
has been struggling to pay suppliers and service its debts, had
announced its intention to sell the land so as to inject much needed
liquidity on its balance sheet.
After “buying” the land
from Solio, Uchumi later moved to sell it to Jewel Complex Limited
which paid a deposit of Sh330 million that was financed by KCB.
Jewel
had committed to conclude the transaction on the condition that the
land (LR. 5875/2) is merged with a nearby plot (LR. 23393) which it also
intended to acquire from Grace Independent Baptist Mission Trustees
using a loan of undisclosed amount from Equity Bank.
But
the committee established that the lease for LR. 23393 had expired,
meaning that the parties were transacting on land belonging to the
State.
“The
subsequent attempt to amalgamate the two pieces of land was being done
albeit the existence of a caveat on the land dating back to 2004,” the
report says.
Uchumi’s chief executive Mohamed Mohamed
told the committee that it is seeking to have the ownership tussle with
the Kenya Army for the prime property resolved by the Head of Public
Service, Joseph Kinyua.
Kenya Army forcibly took over the property despite the Ministry of Defence lacking title for the prime property.
KDF last year moved to occupy the land even though the Ministry of Defence does not have a title to the property.
The
parliamentary report shows how Mr Samuels failed to sell the land to
the government and how a series of interlopers subsequently joined the
fray.
The Ministry of Defence in 1985 offered to buy the land (registered as LR.5875/2) from Mr Samuels for Sh3.5 million.
The
Israeli national rejected the amount and went to court, winning an
enhancement of the award to Sh23 million the following year.
He
did not receive any compensation, retaining the ownership until the
expiry of the lease in 2003. “The committee noted that the provisions of
Section 8 of the Land Acquisition Act Cap. 295 (now repealed), required
that where land is compulsorily acquired, full compensation was to be
paid promptly. This was never done,” the report says.
“Additionally,
despite the fact that the Ministry of Defence submitted a receipt
showing that Sh3.5 million was paid to the Commissioner of Land, there
was no evidence submitted to indicate that the money was deposited to
Middle East Bank and released to Mr Jacobs.”
There was
no surrender or cancellation of the original certificate of lease held
by Mr Samuels and City Hall records still identify him as the owner of
the land on which he owes property rates.
The committee
recommended that the Ministry of Lands and Physical Planning secure the
title relating to LR. 23393 to ensure that Kenyans are not conned by
people purporting to own the property.
“There was
collusion between officials of the Ministry of Lands and Physical
Planning as evidenced by (Solio and Grace land holdings) in order to
effect fraudulent transactions on LR 5875/2 leading to loss of public
funds,” the report said.
“The Nairobi County Government
had already issued allotment letters to (the members of the community)
regularising individual ownership upon payment of Sh69,500 of which some
of the members had already paid,” adds the report.
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