Family lays claim on land where Kisii MCA's office was demolished

A family in Kisii has staked ownership claim to the piece of land where Ichuni MCA Wycliffe Siocha's office is situated adding a fresh twist to wrangles stalking Keroka town.

Alfred Ombaba, a former police officer, said Tuesday they had been trying to ascertain the person who had set up the four-roomed house on their land where his father, mother and stepmother are buried.

The father, he said, died in 1976 and the land is still registered under his name to date.

The title deed to the land was registered in 1971.

"All the searches done up to last week in the Ministry of Lands in Kisii show that our parcel of land had not been transfered or sold out to anybody," the retired officer told the Star by phone from Nairobi.

Construction of the said office began in 2014, a year into devolution.

The office block had been in the news lately after suspected goons tried to gain entry Saturday night.

Some demolition was done during the raid costing the tax payer millions of shillings.

Kisii Governor Simba Arati Monday accused the police in Keroka of detaining the three suspects caught in the act and releasing them without charge.

But speaking to the Star, Ombaba said they are not aware of any buyer who had ever approached them for the parcel where the office sits.

"I am one of two administrators to the estate and can positively confirm that there are no sale transactions of the portion where the structure sits. All we know is that someone we are not familiar with came and put up the structure," he said.

As owners, Ombaba said they depend on the strength of their ownership in the case.

"We have not gone to court yet because we have not seen much activity in the same building. We were to do so once the claimant to ownership turned up and now they appear to getting out of the shadows we shall file soon," the former officer disclosed.

Some houses initially sitting on the site were also demolished by the same people who put up the office structure, the retired officer claimed.

"Someone may have exploited our absence to begin grabbing the land from us. It will not go, they will go," Ombaba stated.

He did acknowledge sending the goons but said as a family, they have all the rights to their land.

"Why should our rights be infringed in going around our property," Ombaba posed.