Kimunya aide issued Syokimau directive, MPs told

Transport minister Amos Kimunya's personal assistant issued the directive to demolish dozens of houses in Nairobi’s Syokimau, a Parliamentary committee has heard.

The Chief Executive of the Kenya Airports Authority Stephen Gichuki told the Joint Committee investigating the demolitions Tuesday that he received “verbal instructions” from John Muya telling him that the Cabinet had ordered that KAA should recover all its land.

He said after the directive, he went ahead with the recovery which resulted in demolitions of houses, some of which had occupied the land for almost a decade.

“Is that how you run KAA? Are instructions of that nature communicated to you in that manner?” posed Mutava Musyimi, the chairman of the Joint Committee that brings together three parliamentary committees –the one on Lands, the National Security and Administration and Transport.

The lawmakers questioned why the authority fenced only a portion of their land, leaving out the parcels belonging to the Uungani self-help group and the Mlolongo Brothers.

The KAA officials were hard-pressed to explain the flight path reason that was raised at the time of the demolitions.

"We have always tried to clear people from our land. It did not start at that time, we have been issuing notices for them to vacate,” said Mr Gichuki.

“We require this land and we’re in a hurry to expand the airport facilities."

But Mr Musyimi retorted: “Because you were in a hurry, you decided to go against a judicial process?”

The KAA boss said they had sought to secure the land but the encroachers had been hostile to them.

Mr Benjamin Lang’at, the MP for Ainamoi, sought to know why the KAA failed to fence off all its land only to come and demolish the land when it had already been occupied and property erected.

The authority maintained that the land in question belonged to it, because they have a title to it. It said it had issued notices, but the MPs said there was a pending case, so the KAA had not basis to issue any notices to those who occupied the land.

‘The court had not determined that this was your land. Whom were you giving your notice, you were giving the notice as who?” posed Mr Fred Kapondi, the chairman of Parliament’s Committee on National Security and Administration.

Mr Meshack Ombura, speaking for Uungani and Mlolongo said the two bodies had not encroached on government land.

“They are the owners of this land, they paid all the statutory fees to the republic of Kenya,” he said.

“It is not true that Uungani have acquired this land fraudulently. It is not fraud. The government gave them allotment letters and accepted payment. They have been living uninterrupted on the said land for 15 years.”

“When electricity was connected, nobody raised a finger. When these structures were erected, nobody raised a query. There was no notice served in respect of intended demolitions. The only semblance of a notice is one which appeared in the Daily Nation, and the said notice does not mention Uungani…,” Mr Ombura told the committee.

He said now that KAA had gone to court, and the case had not even been determined, it ought not to have resorted to the “law of the jungle”.

KAA will return to the committee on Friday. The hearings continue.