Lands boss says Syokimau titles deeds fake

Commissioner of Lands Zablon Mabea has termed as irregular all the allocations in Syokimau area where hundreds of houses were demolished.

He said the title deeds, the letters of allotment, and even the gazette notice relating to the land, were all fake as they had no corresponding records in the master registry at the Ministry of Lands in Nairobi’s Ardhi House.

“What we’ve seen are attempts by the group to legitimise fake documents. The titles and the letters of allotment are not in our records,” said Mr Mabea of the Uungani and Mlolongo Brothers groups during a meeting at at Nairobi’s County Hall Thursday.

He said the last time he read the Kenya Gazette, in which legal notices dealing with issues of land are published was three months ago.

He told MPs that a gazette notice relating to the land in question in Syokimau, published in the Kenya Gazette on August 26, 2010 –changing part of the Syokimau land from leasehold to freehold- was fake, because, the land belonged to the Kenya Airports Authority.

The commissioner tabled a gazette notice dated August 12, 1996 showing that the land measuring 4,674 hectares was allocated to the KAA for a period of 99 years. The document is signed by former lands boss Wilson Gachanja.

Hostile witness

Mr Mabea, under a barrage of questions from MPs, said the legal notice that appeared in the Kenya Gazette was ‘fake”, even though the process of preparing the gazette involves the Ministry, the Attorney General’s Office and the Government Printer.

“You cannot tell me that a minister in the Republic of Kenya can issue a legal notice on the basis of fake documents,” said Mutava Musyimi, who is chairing the Joint Parliamentary Committee on demolitions together with Fred Kapondi.

Mr Musyimi complained that the commissioner was taking them round in a “circumlocutory and labyrinthine” presentation.

The MPs got angry and Mr Kapondi sought to have the commissioner ejected from the hearings for being a “hostile witness”.

“Every statement you make raises questions and an attempt to get you to answer these questions leaves us in the dark,” Mr Musyimi said.

Committee member Mohammed Hussein said the commissioner ought to take responsibility for being negligent, given that despite the knowledge that there were fake documents in circulation, it did not alert the public.

But Mr Mabea said that now that KAA knew that it owned the land, it was upon it to ensure that the land was fenced off and secured.

“The Lands Office did alert the KAA that those documents were fake, and from that point, it was expected that the KAA should have secured land. Indeed, having been armed with the necessary title they ought to have taken the necessary action,” he told the committee.

The commissioner said he won’t take the blame for the approvals granted from Machakos Land’s Office, saying that individual officers have to “carry their own cross”.

“An officer who approves anything on the basis of fake documents will have to carry his own cross. Machakos is just 30km away. I used to work in North Eastern and would come to Nairobi to verify documents before granting approvals,” said Mr Mabea.

The commissioner pointed that there were faults in the documents which show that the developers whose houses were demolished had paid a stand premium of Sh2.97 million to the Ministry of Lands, and that they used to pay Sh97,000 in annual rent. He said the annual rent ought to be 20 per cent of the premium and clearly this was lower.

He added that the stamp duty paid ought to have been about Sh120,000.

“Whoever crafted (these documents) did not know what they were doing,” said Mr Mabea. “For all practical purposes, this letter of allotment is fake.”

Alert the public

The MPs said that the commissioner ought to have made taken some steps to alert the public.

“The number of times you have used the word fake, if you just go back and listen to yourself, is just a lot …you do have a very important office. Why did you not find it important to alert the public?” posed Mr Musyimi.

Mr Muriuki Ruteere, also a committee member added: “When fake currency is circulating in the country, the Central Bank takes responsibility and warns the public. When you noticed that there were fake titles, why didn’t you take action so that the public does not lose money?”

Mr Mabea told the committee that was the responsibility of KAA.

“Obviously, we’re not satisfied with the answers that you’ve given us. You need to come back to us next week, because, people are out there in the rain,” said Mr Musyimi as the told Mr Mabea to book another date with the committee on Thursday next week.

“To us, what the surveyor calls duplication and overlap, is what the commissioner of lands calls fake."