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‘It’s
a massive cover-up’
EAST AFRICAN
STANDARD
12. Dec. 2004
The Government was yesterday
accused of a massive cover up moments after the controversial
Ndung’u Land Report was released.
A commissioner with the team that
probed illegal and irregular allocation of land launched a
vitriolic attack on the Government and urged it to come clean.
"In this form, the truth about
this massive atrocity has been kept away from the public,"
charged Mr Lumumba Odenda, holding a copy of the much-awaited
Ndung’u Report released by Lands Minister Amos Kimunya at a
press conference.
"Where is the full inventory
of who-is-who in this sickening scandal of irregularly acquired
land in Kenya?" Mr Odenda of the Kenya Land Alliance posed.
"We gave the President a
complete set of the report of our painstaking investigations. What
I see here is not just a single document with a cream cover
different to the green one we presented to him (Head of State),
but a ridiculous attempt to cover up," he charged.
But Mr Kimunya defended the
Government saying, "The full report, including the annexes,
are available at the Government Printers for members of the public,
what I don’t know is how long it would take to have them ready (printed)".
"All we did today was out of
courtesy for you people (The Press). We had only printed what we
gave to you. But I can assure you there is no cover up,"
Kimunya said.
Yesterday, The Standard telephoned
Mr Odenda and invited him to the newspaper’s I&M Building
offices to verify the report himself, having been part of the team
that compiled it.
We also wanted Odenda, who was
surprisingly not invited for the presentation ceremony; to confirm
if what was released was indeed the Ndung’u Report in its full
form and scope.
But after perusing the report,
Odenda quickly noted, "This Government has not moved away
from the bad old habits of denying the public the right to
information."
Odenda said Kimunya had not
released any report at all as it did not have an inventory of the
names of beneficiaries, the parcels of land or plots acquired
fraudulently and their location.
He charged that the delay to
release the report was therefore not in good faith but a
calculated move that was all along allegedly intended to
manipulate and eventually conceal the truth from Kenyans.
Odenda said what Kimunya released
yesterday was in fact only a preamble of the actual report
analyzing the public land situation, the findings of what has
happened to each category of land, observations and
recommendations by the commissioners on the way forward.
Consequently, he said, the public
is still not near knowing the scale of the problem, its
perpetrators and beneficiaries.
"Volume II of our report gave
a detailed list of who got what, where. Then there was the
memorandum to the President, which accompanied the report, both
have not been released to the public," noted Odenda.
By failing to release the full
report, he said, the Government would be reluctant to follow up on
recommendations on legal and administrative measures for the
restoration of such lands to their proper title or purpose.
He also expressed reservations that
the Government would pursue for criminal investigation, or
prosecution persons involved in unlawful or irregular allocation
of such lands. Odenda said the Government should have honoured
Nobel Peace Prize winner Prof Wangari Maathai on the day she was
receiving her award in Norway by releasing the full report because
of its implications on the forests and wetlands of this country.
He said if there is no will to seek
out and punish the perpetrators it is unlikely that any legal or
administrative measures for the prevention of unlawful or
irregular allocations of such land in future will be put in place.
"The tragedy of this whole
scenario is that this Government is full of bureaucrats hell bent
on retaining the status quo. Nothing has changed," he said.
"Even more worrying is that we
are talking about an old system that has entrenched itself in a
new, different way. It’s like a dog chasing its own tail. It
wouldn’t catch it, would it?"
The volumes of the Ndung’u report
that were not released contain a full list of the allocations of
by-pass land made to individuals or companies in Nairobi.
It also contains a list of road
reserves that have been encroached upon, and details of the
culprits some of whom have been recommended for criminal
prosecution.
The annexes to the report contain
among other particulars, lists of lands and names of individuals
and corporations to whom public land was illegally allocated.
Also in the report is a full list
of allocations of lands reserved for roads and other public
purposes, but which the public with this portion of the report
being withheld may now not know.
Further, the report details all
suspect allocations of public utility land prepared from the
complaints received from the public. It also gives a comprehensive
list and particulars of companies to which land was allocated
irregularly.
The report provides a list of all
the companies in which the Government previously held shares, but
which it has since sold, a detailed list of State Corporations
that lost their land through such illegal allocations.
It has the particulars of Kenya
Railways land that was sold off in this manner and a detailed list
of the illegal allocation of Government houses.
It also contains a detailed
illustration of the illegalities perpetrated with regard to
allocations of land in the Ngong’ and Karura forests, a detailed
case by case discussion and illustration of settlement schemes
established in forest lands before their degazettement.
The mandate of the commission was
to inquire into the allocation, to private individuals or
corporations, of public land or lands dedicated or reserved for
public purpose. It was to collect and collate evidence and
information available relating to the nature and extent of
unlawful or irregular allocations of such lands.
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Events
leading to release of dossier
Waweru Mugo
In the build-up to the eventual
release of the Ndung’u Report yesterday, leaders, activists,
professionals and victims of land grabbing and historical
injustices put up a spirited campaign to have the report given to
Kenyans.
Here are some highlights.
November 30, 2004: Law
Society of Kenya chairman Ahmednassir Abdullahi announces that the
organisation is all ready to move to court to demand the release
of the Ndung’u Report on irregular and illegal land allocations.
November 19: Former senior
counsel with the commission, Mr Wanyiri Kihoro, adds his voice to
the ongoing debate and demands the release of his team’s
findings to Kenyans. Kihoro, a renowned lawyer, land economist and
activist, says that unless the Ndung’u Report is made public,
land wrangles will persist.
-Kenya National Human Rights
Commission in its demand through chairman Maina Kiai claims the
Cabinet has already sanctioned the release of the land report, and
only Lands minister Amos Kimunya is withholding it.
-LSK names lawyers Gitobu Imanyara,
Tom Ojienda and Paul Mwaniki to take up the case to compel the
Government to make public the report.
November 13: A member of the
Ndung’u commission, Mr Lumumba Odenda, gives the Government two
weeks to make the report public or he does so. Earlier, marchers
in Kitale who included Odenda, Kiai and the local Catholic Justice
and Peace Commissioner Father Gabriel Dolan, lead marchers through
the town streets demanding the release of the report.
November 6: Squatters in
Njuthine Village of Meru hold demonstrations, marching for 5
kilometres to Kiamuri town to compel President Kibaki to release
the report.
October 21: MPs put Lands
minister Amos Kimunya on the spot over the failure to release the
report. They claim in Parliament that there have been attempts to
doctor the report. The minister assures them that the report would
be released once the Cabinet is through with reviewing its
recommendations.
-Attorney General Amos Wako assures
that the government will implement the Ndung’u Report in full.
-Roads and Public Works minister
Raila Odinga claims the report has been doctored to include the
Kisumu Molasses Plant land deal that was sprung into the limelight
only a few days ago.
October 6: The Kenya Human
Rights Commission writes an open letter to President Kibaki
demanding the release of the Ndung’u Report.
October 4: The Law Society
of Kenya (LSK) threatens to move to court to compel the Government
to release the report to the public. The Institution of Surveyors
of Kenya joins in the demands.
too.
October 2: Kanu chairmanship
aspirant and a former Finance minister, Nambale MP Chris Okemo
accuses the Government of sitting on the Ndung’u Report
allegedly because a majority of Narc officials appear in it. He
wants it released immediately for public consumption.
Sepember 27: A Nyeri family
involved in a legal tussle with the Catholic Church wants the
report released to thaw the tension between its members and the
church.
The Ogiek community, a community
reeling from years of historical injustices over their ancestral
land, for the umpteenth time urges the release of the Ndung’u
Report.
September 26: 15 National
Alliance (Party) of Kenya MPs voice demands in Kerugoya over the
continued holding of the Ndung’u Report.
August 3: Lands minister
Amos Kimunya tells Parliament that the Ndung’u Report would be
made public in a month’s time.
July 2: President Kibaki
receives the Ndung’u Report on the irregular and irregular
allocations of public land. It suggests the cancellation of titles
to land handed out irregularly and illegally.
Said the President: "We should
release the findings of the report to the public as soon as
possible as this would help in redressing the land grabbing
issue."
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