MPs probe transfer of beach plot to Moi era State officer’s firm

An aerial view of Diani Beach in Kwale County. FILE PHOTO | NMG

By EDWIN MUTAI
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Summary

• Lunga MP Khatib Mwashetani tabled a petition asking the committee on Land to look into the matter with a view to securing the revocation of the current title deed issued Gami Properties.
• He said the family of the late Mohamed Mwinyihaji Bwika comprising over 100 family members lays claim to the land.

Parliament has opened investigations into the allocation of a prime property in Diani Beach after Gami Properties, a company associated with a government official, claimed ownership.

Lunga MP Khatib Mwashetani tabled a petition asking the committee on Land to look into the matter with a view to securing the revocation of the current title deed issued Gami Properties.

He said the family of the late Mohamed Mwinyihaji Bwika comprising over 100 family members lays claim to the land.

“I, the undersigned, on behalf of the family of the late Mohamed Mwinyihaji Bwika, draw the attention of the House to the following: -that, the family possesses title deeds to four land parcels with the exception of LR No. 13444 DIANI BEACH regarding which efforts for issuance of a title deed has taken over 40 years of applications and unmitigated delays,” Mr Mwashetani said in the petition tabled on December 22 during the Special Session.

He wants MPs to order the land repossessed arguing that in 1972, the government embarked on an ambitious programme to construct the Diani Complex from Tiwi to Diani locations in the then Kwale District that required 300 acres of land along the beach, and subsequently all plots of land within the identified site were surveyed and their sizes recorded in the names of their respective owners with the Bwika family obtaining L.R. 13444 as the plot number for this property.

In 1979, the government publicly announced that it had abandoned the Diani Complex project, with the then President Daniel Moi directing that the land that had been acquired for the programme be returned to the original owners

“Unfortunately, government officials who seemed bent on defrauding and dispossessing the Coastal natives of their land undertook an elaborate and sustained scheme to frustrate land owners who applied for their respective title deeds,” Mr Mwashetani said.

He said in an attempt to conceal their activities, the government officials further opted to vary records by for instance compensating some land owners as little as one acre of land far inland instead of compensation for five acres of land along the beach, and further resorted to use of unapproved plans to subdivide the land.

“That, the Bwika family later learnt that their plot had been irregularly subdivided and allocated to a senior government official under a new plot number, and was thereafter included in the title deeds issued by the government to the adjacent Kongo Mosque plot,” the petition reads.

Mr Mwashetani told the House that despite the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission issuing a Gazette Notice confirming the Bwika family as the rightful owners of the plot, the local administration submitted documents indicating that new plot number had changed to 13665/1-KWALE under the ownership of Gami Properties Limited.