Beneficiaries of illegal land allocation in Kibarani put on notice

The Mombasa County government has warned individuals and private developers who were unprocedurally allocated or “grabbed” land in Kibarani to return it to the public.

Kibarani is a prime area along the Mombasa-Nairobi highway within the Makupa Causeway.

It faces the Kenya Ports Authority headquarters in Mombasa, linking the island and mainland west.

The National Land Commission says private developers have been eying the sea land to conduct business with the port of Mombasa by building container freight stations.

The Governor Hassan Joho-led government Tuesday urged private developers who benefited from the illegal allocations of public land to surrender it immediately.

“We are warning you, just come to us, go to the NLC or the Ministry of Land and surrender these tittle deeds because we are coming for them. We will go for much more than Kibarani because we must plan Mombasa better, failure to which we will face a crisis of lack of public utilities,” Land Executive Edward Dzila Nyale said.

Mr Nyale defended Mombasa Cement saying the firm is not a beneficiary of Kibarani land and sea grabbing or reclamation.

He said the acreage of the land keeps changing and he called for more time to conduct a survey on the land in contention.

“Ownership could have changed from when they were allocated but Mombasa Cement is not part of companies that were awarded Kibarani land. We will [check] with the Ministry of Lands but it is possible new parcels could have been awarded and they have not been updated with us,” he added.

On Monday, the Parliamentary Committee on Environment and Natural Resources mentioned three firms who “grabbed” and reclaimed the land in Kibarani.

“We are focusing on a whole creek in Kibarani,” added the executive.