The National Land Commission has called off a session meant to hear a dispute over land that was allegedly grabbed from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. The NLC adjourned the session to December 20, to give property owners time to prepare response to claims by Kenya Airports Authority (KAA), which is seeking to repossess the disputed land.
The parcels claimed to have been grabbed has property worth millions of shillings and were set to be demolished over safety concerns after Kenya secured direct flights to New York.
NLC Vice-Chairperson Abigael Mbagaya yesterday said the commission would hear submissions from all parties before advising the Government on the way forward. KAA claimed part of its 4,674 Ha land at JKIA had been carved out by private developers and causing the authority to seek NLC intervention to reclaim it.
KAA told NLC the land was reserved for the airport by the Government before the ‘original survey’ of 1996, but later it emerged that there were other title deeds given to individuals before and after the survey. Lawyers representing property owners said they were not aware that yesterday’s hearing was a response to claims by KAA that its land had been grabbed.
They also claimed their clients were in possession of title deeds and asked that KAA serves them with copies of all the documents they would present to the land commission and be given time to interrogate them.
Mbagaya adjourned the hearing, saying a fair ground had to be given to all parties.
[Article source: The Standard, by Michael Chepkwony]
