Pay me for Mau land, says Kiplagat

A prominent beneficiary of allocations in the Mau Forest is vowing to only give it up if the government is ready to pay him. One-time Kanu official Hosea Kiplagat said he owns 500 acres near Kiptagich Tea Factory, 200 acres under tea, and would give it up if government is ready to buy it back.

He said he bought it from Mr Justus ole Tipis, a one-time minister in the Moi government and paid stamp duty of Sh20 million. “When I bought it, there was nothing to do with the forest but my lawyers have written to the Kenya Forestry Service and been told that it is in the Mau. I had established that everything about the land was legal before I bought it,” said Mr Kiplagat.

Current rates

He could not disclose how much he bought it for but said he had invested more than Sh100 million in the tea alone. The government would be forced to fork out between Sh100 million and Sh150 million, plus the cost of the tea and other investments on the land, to Mr Kiplagat.

He described his investment in the forest land as ‘colossal’ and said he had been assured after correspondence with the Kenya Forestry Service that the land should not be in his possession. The restoration of the Mau Forest and the intrigues surrounding it have seen formerly powerful individuals come out of the woodwork and Mr Kiplagat had earlier said he owns 20 hectares in the complex, which he would only relinquish upon compensation.

A minister who is listed among prominent individuals who own land excised from the Mau Forest has denied the reports and asked government to identify the specific parcel he is said to own. Roads minister Franklin Bett also sarcastically asked the Nation to give him the LR number for the parcel in the Kiptagich Extension he is listed as having acquired in the 1990s.

Big shots

A Cabinet committee has approved the dispossession of formerly powerful individuals in the Kanu government who own land in the Mau and Mr Bett, a former State House Comptroller, is said to be one of them. The list of the landowners is largely derived from a report of a commission chaired by lawyer Paul Ndung’u that found that many land allocations during the Moi regime were illegal.

Mr Bett acknowledged that his name appears in the Ndung’u Report but described it as a work of fiction and ‘not free from gossip and malicious information.’ Senior counsel and former Kabete MP Paul Muite defended the Ndung’u commission report and said the big shots should not be paid any compensation as their land allocations were illegal.

“I know Mr Ndung’u as a thorough professional colleague and I have gone through the report. I have no doubts about its accuracy,” said Mr Muite. He said the big shots should not be paid for the illegal acquisitions in Mau forest and should instead be facing prosecution for abuse of office.

Kuresoi MP Zakayo Cheruyiot is listed as one of the biggest land owners in the forest with 1,955 hectares which he has so far denied. “The land I occupy in Kuresoi is not illegally allocated to me but I bought the land and those propagating the ideas that I own all that land in the Mau should proof it,” he said.

Additional reporting by George Sayagie