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Big names
shocker in land-grab report
(but so far only one of three volumes released!)
DAILY NATION
Story by DAVID OKWEMBAH
Publication Date: 11 Dec. 2004
The much-awaited Paul Ndung’u
report on illegal allocation of public land was released yesterday
– but without many of the big names that featured during the
commission's public hearings.
And outraged human rights
organisations immediately protested that President Kibaki should
not betray Kenyans by releasing the report without the two annexes
which contained the names of all those implicated in land grabbing.
A number of well known people are
named in the main report which was released, however.
They include the minister for
Special Programmes Mr. Njenga Karume.
Also in the report are MPs Joseph
Kamotho, Nicholas Biwott and William Ruto while others are former
ministers, MPs and top civil servants in the administration of
former President Moi.
Mr. Karume is stated to have
illegally acquired more than 149 acres known as Avondale in the
Nakuru area for Sh397,000 from the Agricultural Development
Corporation.
Mr. Kamotho is linked to the
illegal acquisition of 2.228 hectares in Karura forest in exchange
for land of his that was said to have been allocated to the Kenya
technical Teachers College.
Mr. Ruto is stated to have been a
director of Berke Commercial Agencies that illegally acquired
Ngong Forest land and sold it to Kenya Pipeline Company for more
than Sh9.9 million in August, 2001.
Mr. Biwott is accused of illegally
acquiring 161 hectares in Kaptagat Forest in 1994 for the Maria
Soti Education Trust.
The big names still in government
which were expected to be made public are in two annexes to the
report that the minister for Lands and Housing, Mr. Amos Kimunya,
failed to release.
The minister yesterday defended
himself, claiming the report was complete.
"The information is in the
report and not the annexes," Mr. Kimunya said when asked why
the annxes were not released.
However, he added that he had to
release the report yesterday minus the names because "the
Government Printer will take two weeks to release the annexes."
Mr. Kimunya was unable to explain
the urgency to release the report minus the annexes and said
anybody interested in the names could buy them from the Government
Press when they are ready.
At the Press conference he had
called to formally release the report, Mr. Kimunya stubbornly
refused to give names of any top Government official named during
the commission's sittings.
Ever since the report was handed to
the Government on July 2, 2004, the Government has been accused of
doctoring it to remove names of its own senior ministers and civil
servants.
The minister, who had the original
hardcover copy of the report presented to President Kibaki
together with the paperback copy he gave to the media asked Mr.
Ndung’u, the Nairobi lawyer who led the commission, to look at
them both and confirm if they were the same. Mr Ndung’u who sat
next to his vice-chairman Mr. Michael Aronson confirmed they were.
The minister promised that the
Government would fully implement the findings and recommendations
in the report.
He also warned that the Government
would not recognise illegal title deeds even if the President had
allocated the land.
Mr. Kimunya revealed that at least
63 illegal title deeds had been returned to the Government,
including two from former President Moi, Attorney-General Mr. Amos
Wako, and the assistant minister for foreign affairs, Mr. Moses
Wetangula.
The minister added that an
insurance company, Blue Shield, had surrendered land in Karura
Forest after learning that it had been grabbed, despite paying
millions of shillings to acquire it.
Accompanied by his PS Mr. Erastus
Mwongera and by Mr. Kiriinya Mukira of Roads and Public Works, the
minister said an Advisory Task Force would be immediately set up
at the ministry to start court action and advise on alternative
methods of recovering grabbed land.
Members of the task force will
include five specialists in land law and general land
administration, the CID director and Permanent Secretaries from
lands, roads, environment and local government.
Also to be set up next year is the
Land Titles Tribunal which will handle all cases of revocation,
rectification or validation of illegal titles.
The minister said the
Commission’s findings on each type of public land illegally
acquired would be fully implemented and added that "public
land" included a wide variety of landadministered by the
central government, local government and State corporations.
"Also categorised as public
land are the huge areas of trust land administered by local
authorities for the benefit of residents of those areas," he
added.
The minister said government houses
reserved for public servants were classified as on "alienated
land" and therefore are not available for allocation.
Any government house sold without
following the Government Lands Act therefore had been illegally
acquired.
He further said that assets of
state corporations, movable and immovable, were also public
property.
Mr. Kimunya said many state
corporations were coerced into spending billions of shillings
towards illegal purchase of public lands.
Other public lands grabbed without
following the proper procedures included forests, roads and road
reserves, public recreation areas, children's playgrounds, bus
parks, car parks, military land and settlement schemes among
others.
The minister put on notice those
who had purchased illegally acquired public land saying that they
did not have valid titles.
"The legal doctrine of 'bona
fide' purchase for value without notice does not apply to an
illegal title over public land," he added.
Mr. Kimunya said an illegal title
remained void throughout, notwithstanding that such land may have
been sold/transferred to a third party or mortgaged to a bank.
He said through the illegal
allocations, hundreds of thousands of illegal title deeds had been
created with many of them offloaded to innocent third parties
including banks to secure huge loans.
The minister promised that the
Government would implement the recommendations contained in the
Ndung’u report within the legal framework.
As soon as he released the report
without the annexes however, human rights organisations complained
it had not beeen relesased in its entirety.
Kenya Human Rights Commission
official Wanjiku Miano said although President Kibaki "was
walking a political tight rope" by releasing the report, he
should not betray Kenyans by omitting the two annexes.
"By ensuring the report is
released to the public in all its entirety, the Head of State will
send a strong message to us all that we are indeed headed for a
new dawn," he said.
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