• The 150 ex-workers were to buy two- or three-bedroom units but the majority did not pay
• The case dragged for 11 years
One hundred and fifty former staff of the Telecom and Postal Corporation will have to pay the firm Sh2.8 million outstanding rent for the firm’s houses they have been occupying.
This was part of a ruling made by the Environment and Land Court. Justice Elijah Obaga, however, spared them other arrears accrued over 11 years. He also declined to order their eviction.
The registered trustees of the Teleposta Pension Scheme sought to evict the occupants for failing to pay rent or buy the houses. The former employees filed a suit in September 2008 to counter the decision. Some tenants are said to be "too poor to buy the houses". They sought orders barring them from paying rent and from being evicted. They wanted the houses to be allocated to them. The court declined to grant the request but stopped their eviction.
The case has been on since and the tenants have not been paying rent, pending the dispute. The tenants occupy posh houses on Nairobi’s Kilimani estate and others along Jogoo Road. According to court documents, only 20 of the 67 listed in suit papers to stop the firm’s auctioneers from evicting them completed payment for the houses. The scheme has been defending its intention to evict the tenants.
“The applicant cannot be given orders of eviction even if the same would have been possible through a simple application, which is not based on a suit. The applicant has the option of levying distress for rent as there are no orders restraining them from doing so,” Obanga ruled.
They were to conclude the purchase of the two and three bedrooms apartments by 2013 — Sh4 million for two-bedroom apartments and Sh5 million for three-bedroom ones. However, after accruing a Sh2.8 million debt, the former employees sued the trustees of Teleposta Pension Scheme who wanted to evict them. They must now pay the Sh2.8 million.