The government is unable to establish the ownership of the disputed Kamiti/Amner land.
Ministry of Lands and the National Land Commission officials yesterday failed to tell the National Assembly’s Lands Committee the rightful owners of the land, which is a subject of a protracted dispute.
The committee, which is chaired by Soy MP Caleb Kositany, ordered the two to confirm the status and report to the committee in two weeks.
The ownership of the 419-acre property in Kiambu, is contested by five groups —Kamiti Forest Squatters Association, Kamiti Development Association, Muungano wa Kamiti Group, and Kamiti Amner Development Welfare Group.
Out of the acreage, Kanu regime in 1994 directed that 300 acres be hived off and allocated to squatters and the landless.
Kamiti Squatters Association told the Kositany-led committee that its members were given the land after being displaced from Rift Valley in post-1992 general election violence.
KSA said the excision was not completed although the notice of intention to do so was gazetted.
The association alleged that influential persons obtained leases to the land at the expense of genuine squatters. This triggered a protest by the landless, prompting the government to suspend the exercise in 1996.
Lands CAS Gideon Mung'aro said the land was surveyed in 1954 and declared Central Forest in 1964.
Mung'aro told the committee that the defunct Kiambu County Council interfered with the allocation of the land, and instead awarded it to rich and influential people.
NLC chief executive Kabale Tache said they issued a notice guided by the decision that the land belongs to Kamiti/Amner Development Association.
(Edited by Eliud Kibii)
