Land grabbing major county challenge, says Kidero

Nairobi Governor Evans Kidero ha said land grabbing in the city remains a major challenge even after petitioning National Lands Commission to revoke 1,247 titles of illegally acquired public spaces.

Speaking in Ruai, Dr Kidero said that most of the grabbed pieces of land are for churches and public schools.

“We are working with the NLC to get title deeds for schools as the cases are increasing. We just visited Friends School Dandora which had issues of land,” said Dr Kidero.

He singled out Kasarani, Ruai and Embakasi as areas where unsuspecting buyers are sold illegal pieces of land.

Dr Kidero put on notice land buying companies for failing to issue title deeds to their owners saying that it makes them an easy target to land grabbers.

“Due to massive lands in Kasarani and Embakasi we had a lot of land buying companies based here like the Njiru/Githunguri on the lower side and Embakasi ranching and Kithyeeko and for the longest time they have frustrated owners with not issuing them with title deeds,” said Dr Kidero.

He added that together with President Uhuru Kenyatta, they will — in the next three weeks — issue 8,000 title deeds out of 19,000 in Embakasi.

He also assured those whose leases have expired that they will not be subjected to eviction.