National Land Commission probes grabbing of State House land

Huge chunks of land belonging to State Houses and lodges across the country have been grabbed, the National Land Commission has said.

NLC chairman Muhammad Swazuri said on Tuesday that portions of land belonging to Nakuru, Kisumu, Kakamega and Eldoret State Houses and lodges had been allocated illegally.

This comes after revelations on Sunday that a developer had illegally acquired part of Mombasa State House land.

Dr Swazuri said he had sent officers to the affected regions to establish the current ownership status of the parcels of the said land.

IN PRIVATE HANDS

“We are just leaving for Nakuru with some of the teams. From there we shall proceed to Kisumu, Kakamega and Eldoret. We have credible information that land belonging to State Houses in Nakuru, Kisumu, Kakamega, Eldoret and Mombasa has been grabbed and are in private hands.”

Dr Swazuri said that a team of officers had been sent to Mombasa to investigate the illegal allocation of State House land to the private developer.

“I will personally join the Mombasa team to strengthen the investigations. I want to tell the country that we shall repossess all that land because it is our mandate. The Constitution empowers the NLC to repossess all grabbed land in the country.”

Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission spokesman Yassin Aila on Sunday said private developers had grabbed the Mombasa State House land.

He said the land on which a hotel is being built would be repossessed for the construction of the residence of the Deputy President.

A former Mombasa administrator, who requested not to be named for fear of jeopardising his current position, yesterday spoke of “big rot” involving government land in the region in the 1990s.

POWERFUL OFFICIALS

He said it was during this period that powerful civil servants acquired Mombasa District Commissioner’s and Provincial Police Officer’s residences and sold them to private developers.

Mr Aila alluded to these allegations when he said “there are so many cases of government land grabbing in Mombasa and we are pursuing some of them”.

He said the hotel being put up by the developer on the government land is less than 100 metres from State House, the official residence of the President while at the Coast.

He said EACC had conservatory orders over the Mombasa State House land and would move to court to repossess it.