Payment for rail project land delayed

Mombasa residents who own plots taken over for the construction of the standard gauge railway will have to wait a little longer for compensation after the national lands agency announced it would review titles.

The National Land Commission (NLC) will from July 20, start evaluating the parcels of land in Changamwe to determine who the genuine owners of the 73 titles for compensation to be paid out.

“This will be done after the NLC has determined the rightful owners of the parcels of land,” chairman Muhammad Swazuri said yesterday, when he read to the media an agreement signed by him, Governor Hassan Joho and Kenya Railways officials at the Tamarind Restaurant.

According to the agreement, the contractor will be allowed to carry on with work in areas that are not occupied as the parties tackle the dispute.

Dr Swazuri said revised offer letters would be issued to the residents of Skembo Village, who rejected the Sh5,000 for the Sh200,000 the commission offered them a month ago.

They also agreed that 1,500 fishermen and 1,800 families living in the area would be “adequately” compensated.

Asked how much would be added to the Sh400 million earlier offered to all the residents who had built structures but did not have titles, Dr Swazuri said it would depend on the value of the buildings.

The bone of contention, however, is the 73 parcels of land said to be owned by influential individuals.

County officials protested against plans to pay out Sh3.3 billion in compensation to residents with title deeds, saying some of the documents were not genuine.

Governor Joho, County Lands and Housing Executive Francis Thoya, among other officials, led the residents in rejecting the offer, saying it was too little.

Following confrontations between the two parties, the project was put on hold as negotiations continued.

At the same time, a 62-year-old woman in Kwale County said she is yet to receive compensation more than six months after her house was flattened by bulldozers at Taru Trading Centre in Kinango Constituency.

Ms Nadzuwa Leli, a single mother, yesterday, said: “I was given a plot by the Chaka Mwamkono family 36 years ago. I built a house on the land and I have been living there until the railway project started recently.”

When surveyors went to her compound and asked her to move to pave the way for the railway, she began seeking compensation but she has not yet been paid.

“I visited the Taru Location chief’s office, seeking compensation, and I was referred to the Kinango Sub-County deputy commissioner, who referred me back to the chief,” she told the Nation.