Price of Tassia land inflated: ex-NSSF boss
View of a section of the Tassia II Settlement Scheme. Powerful brokers may have inflated the price of land of the Tassia II project as it was not properly valued, former NSSF managing trustee Naftali Mogere said on Tuesday. Photo/ JEFF ANGOTE/NATION
What you need to know:
- According to Mr Mogere, who served as Managing Trustee at the National Social Security Fund between 2002 and 2005, NSSF at some point was buying too many parcels of land without plans to develop them, causing alarm.
- NSSF bought the 350-acre Tassia parcel at Sh2.2 billion between 1992 and 1995. Mr Mogere told the committee investigating the controversial approval of expenditure of Sh5.053 billion on infrastructure development for Tassia II and III housing schemes that there were no plans to develop the land.
Powerful brokers may have inflated the price of land of the Tassia II project as it was not properly valued, former NSSF managing trustee Naftali Mogere said on Tuesday.
Appearing before the National Assembly Committee on Labour and Social Welfare, he suggested that some powerful individuals may have deliberately inflated the price of the land for personal gain.
“People were buying land under the pretext of building houses…it was too expensive but they were politically connected and the land was not properly evaluated,” he told the committee chaired by Matungu MP David Were at a session held Tuesday.
SPENDING SPREE
According to Mr Mogere, who served as Managing Trustee at the National Social Security Fund between 2002 and 2005, NSSF at some point was buying too many parcels of land without plans to develop them, causing alarm.
He said it was so serious that the regulator, Retirement Benefits Authority (RBA), out of concern, warned the fund against the “spending spree,” further asking it to liquidate some of its properties.
The fund had acquired several other pieces of land in Athi River, Karura and Ngong forests.
It also purchased a piece of land along Kenyatta Avenue near the Laico Regency Hotel, formerly Grand Regency.
NSSF bought the 350-acre Tassia parcel at Sh2.2 billion between 1992 and 1995. Mr Mogere told the committee investigating the controversial approval of expenditure of Sh5.053 billion on infrastructure development for Tassia II and III housing schemes that there were no plans to develop the land.
Responding to questions, he said squatters who had invaded the land, led by the late Embakasi MP David Mwenje, visited him and negotiated to have the fund sell the plots to them rather than be evicted, hence the process by NSSF to regularise the plots.
The Federation of Kenya Employers and the Central Organisation of Trade Unions representing employers and workers on the NSSF Board have already appeared before the parliamentary committee and have disowned the process used to approve the Sh5.053 bn for the upgrade, saying it was not presented to the Board for formal approval as expected.
FKE Executive Director Jacqueline Mugo told the committee that powerful forces could be behind the project.
