• Ngong Road Forest was proclaimed on April 30, 1932, with an acreage of 7,231.6 but by 1978 it had shrunk to 3,283.27 acres. Some 3,948.33 acres had been grabbed.
• Parliamentary oversight committee chair Kareke Mbiuki said past government officers - dead or alive - should be held criminally responsible for the wrongs done.
Image: COURTESY
Titles for 132 acres of Ngong Road Forest were processed way before the land was degazetted, a parliamentary watchdog committee was told early this week.
The disclosure was made on Tuesday during the National Assembly Departmental Committee on Environment and Natural Resources visit to the area the government wants to repossess.
The MPs were taken around by Kenya Forest Service chief surveyor Evans Kegode.
The Kareke Mbiuki-led committee toured Royal Palace Estate, Sunvalley III, Sunvalley II, Sunvalley I, Lang'ata Gardens, Lang'ata Place View, Women Prison, St Mary’s Hospital, Kenya Medical Association, Dog Section and Forest Edge View Estate.
“The titles for the land that Sunvalley II and Sunvalley III, Royal Palace and Royal Estates occupy were processed between 1994 and 1996, way before degazettement in 1998,” Kegode said.
He said the degazettement was done to sanitise the titles given two years earlier. “This is illegal. The titles had already been processed even as he (minister) was lying to members of Parliament.”
Kegode was referring to influential Natural Resources minister in the Daniel Moi administration Francis Lotodo, who hived off the 132 acres before allocating them for "social amenities" through a March 23, 1998, gazette notice.
“In exercise of the powers conferred by section 4(1) of the Forest Act, the minister for Natural Resources declares that the boundaries of Ngong Road Forest reserve be altered to exclude the area described in the schedule hereto,” Lotodo's notice said.
He identified the area as LR No. 23256 within and adjourning the eastern boundary of Ngong Road Forest reserve.
Ngong Road Forest was proclaimed on April 30, 1932, with an acreage of 7,231.6. By 1978 it had shrunk to 3,283.27 acres. Some 3,948.33 acres had been grabbed.
Kegode said occupants of forest land must be kicked out.
Lang'ata MP Nixon Korir, who petitioned the National Assembly to intervene following the push by Environment Cabinet Keriako Tobiko to repossess the land pleaded with the committee to listen to both sides.
"I know you will write an independent report,” Korir told the committee as he blames rogue government officers for duping unsuspecting Kenyans to buy forest land.
Mbiuki agreed that there was a problem and urged those with property in the contested area to own up. He said his committee will be guided by the law while compiling their report.
The Maara MP said past government officers - dead or alive - should be held criminally responsible for the wrongs they may have committed.
“We have recently seen court rulings which we 100 per cent support,” he said in reference to the recent recovery of 53 acres belonging to the Kenya Meteorological Department in Industrial area.
Mbiuki said their report will be ready in two weeks.
Kegode denied Korir's assertion that a perimeter wall around the contested area was erected by the government after the degazettement by Lotodo.
Royal Park Estate chairman Abdi Zeila told the committee that the estate has 760 plots and 460 houses where over 5,000 people call home.
Zeila said they are in the parcel of land legally.
Kegode told the committee there was a Kenya Pipeline Corporation pipeline under Sunvalley and that a 30 by 30 metre wayleave had not been adhered to.
A private school has been built near the pipeline, which also runs through a football pitch.
Kegode said part of the land reserved for the Lang'ata Women's Prison, Kenya Police (dog unit) was also in the hands of private developers.
St Mary’s Hospital is also on a portion that KFS says was grabbed.
- mwaniki fm