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Churches And MPs Named in Land Deals
The Nation (Nairobi)
October 8, 2004
Posted to the web October 8, 2004
David Mugonyi
Nairobi
Churches and foreign embassies as well as politicians and civil servants are named in the Ndung'u report as having received and sold public land.
They include many of the mainstream churches like the Catholics and Anglicans as well as smaller religious groups.
Others who received irregularly allocated land include sitting and former Cabinet ministers, current and past MPs, civil servants and people who served as political assistants in the Kenyatta and Moi regimes, according to the report by the Ndung'u commission which looked into illegal land deals.
Opposition party members who served in the last regime yesterday admitted receiving and then selling land, while also named in the report are a large number of parastatals, cited as having disposed of their land irregularly. The state corporations are also accused of acquiring land at exorbitant prices.
Ministers, State House officials and all levels of the provincial administration were involved in illegal allocations.
The National Social Security Fund is specifically cited for a buying spree which saw it spend Sh30 billion between 1990 to 1995 in purchasing both developed and undeveloped plots in major towns throughout the country.
Former Cabinet minister Shariff Nassir and former Msambweni MP Kassim Mwamzandi - both named in the report - told the Nation yesterday that they had they applied formally for their parcels of land and had not grabbed them.
Mr Nassir was said to have sold land to Kenya Ports Authority while Mr Mwamzandi was listed as having acquired land belonging to Kenya Wildlife Service.
Mr Nassir received a total of Sh16 million from KPA after disposing of 2.78 hectares that was undeveloped, and another parcel whose size was not given.
Mr Nassir, former MP for Mvita, said: "I sold land to KPA after we reached a mutual agreement."
He added that he had no regrets. According to him, many Kenyans had acquired huge chunks of land irregularly since 1962.
Mr Mwamzandi said he acquired a title deed for portions of Shimoni Marine Park regularly.
"I have no office to make title deeds . . . I applied to the government and I was allocated," he said by telephone.
Eldoret North MP William Ruto, who is also on the list of those who acquired land irregularly and later sold it to the Kenya Pipeline Company, said he could not comment because the matter was in court.
Mr Ruto and former Lands Commissioner Sammy Mwaita have denied defrauding KPC of Sh77 million.
Apart from KPA and KPC, the National Social Security Fund and Kenya Reinsurance Corporation were named as corporations that did not only lose land but were also pressurised into buying it back at exorbitant prices.
"They became captive buyers of land from politically connected allottees," the report states.
NSSF acquired land in Karura and Ngong forests and other places where there was little value.
Churches and foreign missions are also alleged to have taken part in the irregular acquisitions.
The churches mainly grabbed public utility plots and school playgrounds.
Some received the land as an inducement or reward for mobilising political support for Kanu.
"In many instances, the religious institutions obtained public land without paying money for it," the report states. "At times they obtained large tracts of public land for very little money."
And it went on: "The moral decadence epitomised by the grabbing of public land did not spare religious institutions of all faiths."
Among the churches listed in the report are the Catholic, Anglican, African Inland Church, Presbyterian Church of East Africa and Seventh Day Adventist.
Others are Baptist, Full Gospel Churches of Kenya, AIPCA, Redeemed Gospel, Holy Trinity, and Pentecostal Assemblies of
God.
The foreign embassies received land because it appeared there was no government policy on specific locations allocated to them.
The report, handed to President Kibaki on July 2, has yet to be made public, although sections of it listing the Ndung'u commission's main findings and recommendations were published exclusively in the Daily Nation
yesterday.
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