Locals want Sh26bn compensation for Kisumu airport land

Andrew Obala takes an oath before making a presentation during the National Land Commission committee hearings on historical land injustices at Kisumu Social Hall on August 16,2018. PHOTO | ONDARI OGEGA | NATION

What you need to know:

  • Kogony Council of Elders has accused KAA of reneging on a promise to pay compensation for the 880 acres.

  • The clan gave out part of their ancestral land of more than 500 acres in 1914 and another 373 acres in 1942.

  • KAA it was for the national government and not KAA to pay the community.

The community around Kisumu International Airport is demanding Sh26 billion from the Kenya Airports Authority as compensation for the land, which was acquired in 1942.

Through a petition to the National Land Commission (NLC), the Kogony Council of Elders has accused KAA of reneging on a promise to pay compensation for the 880 acres.

Mr Hillary Awino, who represented the community during the NLC sitting held at Kisumu Social Hall on Thursday, said the claim was according to a valuation conducted in 2006.

“It is unfortunate for the government to retreat on an agreement that was reached mutually as members of the community continue to live in abject poverty,” Mr Awino told the four-member committee investigating historical land injustices.

He expressed concern that the land, which was bought in Muhoroni to resettle the more than 2,000 families, had been taken over by the 326 families currently occupying it.

While KAA lawyer David Otieno indicated that the members voluntarily gave out the land, he pointed out that it was for the national government and not KAA to pay the community.

“The KAA came later and is not privy to the agreement reached between the two parties. The government allocated the land to KAA and they should not bear the cost of compensation,” he told the committee in his submissions.

It emerged that the Kogony clan gave out part of their ancestral land of more than 500 acres in 1914 and another 373 acres in 1942.

Mr Paul Otieno, who is the chairman of the community, appealed to the team led by NLC commissioner Samuel Tororei to ensure that they get justice, claiming that courts had failed them.

Mr Tororei asked Mr Awino to file a fresh claim for other parcels of land acquired by the government in 1906, 1914 together with the one for 1942, during which Kenya was under British colonial rule.

He pledged to carry out a thorough investigation into the Muhoroni land and follow up the issue of compensation to the satisfaction of both parties.

NLC says it seeks to give redress to the citizens who suffered historical land injustices between June 15, 1895 and  August 30, 2010, as enshrined in the Constitution.

But NLC risks repeating work already done by previous commissions of inquiry such as the Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission controversially chaired by the late Bethuel Kiplagat and the Ndung’u Land Report produced by a team led by lawyer Paul Ndung’u.

Both reports fingered specific individuals in government for allocating themselves public land or taking away community land without compensation.

In 2016, the National Land Commission Act was amended to define historical land injustice as a grievance which was occasioned by violation of a right in land on the basis of any law, policy, declaration, administration, practice, treaty or agreement.