CID to quiz firms’ bosses in probe on Lamu titles

Investigations to establish how thousands of acres of public land were allocated in Lamu county have kicked off with CID boss Ndegwa Muhoro ordering directors of the companies linked to the suspect allocations to record statements.

Mr Muhoro, who heads the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, announced from Mombasa that investigations into the contentious allocations of more than 500,000 acres would be carried out jointly by the CID and the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission.

Mr Muhoro spoke at a press conference at the Aga Khan High School in Mombasa where he had gone to assess the security situation at this year’s Kenya Schools and Colleges National Music Festival.

Earlier, Lands Cabinet Secretary Charity Ngilu said the investigations had started and the government would stop at nothing to revoke title deeds that were irregularly given out.

“We will not look back. We are very serious on this matter,” Mrs Ngilu told the Nation on Tuesday evening at the end of a two-day visit of her ministry’s offices in Mombasa, Kwale and Kilifi counties. While there, she held meetings with officials from the ministry as well as governors from the counties as she sought to streamline registries and land allocations in the region.

Wednesday, former Lands Commissioner Zablon Mabeya maintained that proper procedures were followed in allocating the thousands of acres in Lamu.

Speaking for the first time since President Kenyatta ordered the cancellation of titles to the disputed land last week, Mr Mabeya said that about 3,200 acres, which form part of the Lamu Port and South Sudan Transport Corridor (Lapsset), had initially been allocated to Mat International by the then Lands minister Kivutha Kibwana.

Following protests from the local communities, who said that they had been sidelined when the land was allocated to outsiders, the property reverted to the Lamu County Council which determined who was to be allocated land.

The recommendations that the council made to the Government were then approved by Mr James Orengo when he was the minister for Lands.

Mrs Ngilu said in Kilifi on Tuesday that Mr Orengo — now the ODM senator for Siaya — had questions to answer since he was the minister when the controversial allocations were approved.

She said the allocations were effected between March and November 2012.

“In that period, he was in charge so he may be in a better position to say what happened in Lamu,” Mrs Ngilu said.

According to her, some of the beneficiaries were yet to be identified.

“It has become extremely difficult to identify some of the owners of the companies who own land in Lamu County. This means that some of the acquiring processes might have been illegal. That is what is the subject of investigations,” she said and also challenged Mr Orengo to release the dossier he claims to have on land grabbing.

“If he has the dossier he believes has the names of prominent people who grabbed public land, let him come out and release it.

HE WAS IN CHARGE

“But let me remind him that he was in charge of the ministry for some years. Why did he not release it at that time? Why should you wait until you are mentioned and then you say that you have this and that?” she asked.

Mrs Ngilu said that the Government would live by its pledge to recover all illegally acquired land without minding the status of the person or the company that owned the land.

“What we are doing is to repossess all land that was illegal acquired. We don’t want to know whether the person or the company concerned is owned by an influential person or not. The policy of the Jubilee government is to bring back the land to the people,” she said.

Wednesday, Mrs Ngilu was expected to hold a meeting with Lamu Governor Issa Timamy in her Nairobi office over the allocations.

She said the Government is targeting rural areas in Kilifi, Kwale, Tana River, Lamu and Taita/Taveta to have at least received half a million title deeds by the end of the year.

“We want to issue 600,000 title deeds to those people living in rural areas in the Coast counties. The President is very much concerned about this issue and wants to bring to an end land problems in the Coast region,” she said.