• Nyong’o has since written to Lands CS Farida Karoney and the National Lands Commission seeking their support in the process.
• He cited massive registration and issuance of titles and leases to questionable, irregularly and fraudulently acquired public land and property.
Image: MAURICE ALAL
Kisumu Governor Anyang' Nyong’o has embarked on a campaign to repossess all grabbed public land and property within the county.
The campaign targets illegally and fraudulently acquired parcels both by individuals and corporate entities.
Nyong’o has since written to Lands CS Farida Karoney and the National Lands Commission seeking their support in the process.
He cited massive registration and issuance of titles and leases to questionable, irregularly and fraudulently acquired public land and property.
Nyong’o listed 120 parcels of land which have been grabbed by former top politicians, private developers, companies and businessmen.
The parcels identified as grabbed belong to the who is who in the region among them famous politicians and former ministers in the past regimes.
Others are top businessmen linked to giant corporate bodies operating in the country.
The list of the affected parcels was forwarded to the land registrar. The county government suspects the parcels had been fraudulently acquired having inherited an inventory of all public land utilities from the defunct Kisumu municipal council.
Nyong’o appointed a land task force to collect information on all public land maters in the city when he took over as the governor.
The task force identified several parcels of public land and properties that were fraudulently acquired in Kisumu.
Around the same time the City manager wrote a letter to the Land Registrar in Kisumu advising the office to suspend all transactions on public land and property in Kisumu city.
The city management in their audit exercise discovered that land set aside for sewer lines, parking spaces, pathways, drainage systems, playgrounds and areas for ECD developments, health facilities and affordable housing had been fraudulently acquired and illegally occupied.
Among the proposals suggested by the county include repossessing of fraudulently acquired public land, initiating dialogue with individuals who have developed properties in the said land and providing restriction on renewal of the lease.
Others include placing restriction on the parcels until they are repossessed or the governor sending out an advisory to land commission and Ministry of Land to revoke all illegally acquired leases and titles of listed property.
Nyong’o said the worst case was that most City houses, land parcels, and other properties had been fraudulently grabbed by land brokers and cartels.
In Kibos area for example, 105 hectares of land acquired by the municipality had been grabbed. This included land marked as an industrial area and market spaces.
At the City’s CBD, parking spaces, pathways and footpaths had also been grabbed.
Nyong’o said the decrease of public land due to grabbing was a major issue in Kisumu City.
He noted that individuals knowingly trespassed into public land and have fraudulently and un-procedurally allotted, leased and sold the parcels to different individuals who have subsequently developed them.
“Individuals have also encroached and built permanent structures on some of this public land,” the letter reads in part.
In February, Kisumu City Manager Abala Wanga said more than 67 grabbed parcels of land in Kisumu city will be repossessed before the end of the year.
Wanga said they have opened a new chapter in recovering illegally acquired property through structured negotiation.
He appealed to the Ministry of Land and the National Land Commission to help them recover grabbed land through a cleanup of its regional office in Kisumu.
“The Kisumu land office needs a detailed cleanup. We are asking the ministry to clean its house, failing which we will move in ourselves,” he said.