[Source: The Star, by James Mbaka]
The Government is reclaiming over 2,700 acres of public land illegally allocated to private developers within Nairobi.
On Wednesday, Lands officials repossessed some 1,600 acres in Ruai associated with a senior government official.
As with the President’s anti-graft fight aimed at securing his legacy, tens of government officials and beneficiaries of the illegal allocations could be arrested and prosecuted.
Documents prepared by senior government officials and obtained by the Star detail how public land was hived off in Kariobangi, Karura, Karen, Kabete and Kahawa West.
The parcels were meant for sanitation facilities, sewerage treatment plants and water storage facilities but were grabbed by developers.
In some cases, grabbers use fake land registration documents to claim ownership, while in other scenarios genuine but fraudulently obtained documents have been cited.
On Wednesday, a joint statement by Water and Irrigation PS Joseph Irungu and his Lands counterpart Nicholas Muraguli said that the government will repossess all illegally allocated land.
The fraud has left little or no land for expansion of sanitation facilities in Nairobi despite its rising population.
Nairobi is Kenya’s largest city with a population of 4,397,073, while the Nairobi metropolitan area is inhabited by 9,354,580 people.
However, documents show that while the government had set aside 4,449.2 acres of land for expansion of water and sewerage facilities, only 1,722.3 acres remain.
The rest of the land — about 2726.9 acres — has been grabbed by private developers across Nairobi city.
At the Karura reservoir off Kiambu Road, 4.3 acres of land have been hived off from the original six acres allocated for water storage for Karura North and Eastern part of Nairobi.
The Loresho reservoir has also lost 2.3 acres of its land grabbed by private individuals. The land was in 1996 subdivided into six parcels —Nairobi Block 90/591-596.
At the Kariobangi sewerage treatment plant, 32 acres of land have been grabbed while at Ruiru some 0.4 acres have been taken up by private developers.
At Karen ponds, off Lang’ata Road, 5.1 acres of land that was meant for the sewerage treatment works for Karen Shopping Centre has been illegally allocated to a private developer.
The government says it has acquired a loan of Sh20 billion from ADB and AFD for implementation of sewerage projects within Nairobi City.
This is intended to connect more households into the sewerage system and to construct 80,000m3 per day of the sewerage treatment system in Ruai.
The implementation of the projects is expected to start in July 2020.
[Full article: The Star, by James Mbaka]
