A letter allegedly written by Kilifi North MP Gideon Mung’aro to then Commissioner of Lands Zablon Mabeya on the controversial Chembe Kibambamshe Settlement Scheme more than five years ago is at the centre of fresh investigations on land fraud.
In the letter, Mung’aro (right) is said to have recommended the allocation of land to one of his workers. The land, it is said, was later sold under controversial circumstances.
When Director of Public Prosecution Keriako Tobiko applied for a fresh probe into one of the most complicated transactions at the scheme, he suggested that the trial that had been going on was a sham orchestrated to save the masterminds of the land scam.
Due to these doubts on the integrity of an earlier probe carried out by the Kilifi Criminal Investigations Department (CID), a special team of detectives will be deployed from Nairobi to probe Mung’aro and others over the matter.
Only one man was put on trial after the initial investigation, and Henry Achoch, the representative of the DPP in Malindi, says the accused could be a ‘sacrificial lamb’.
“We need to catch the big fish as they are not above the law,” Achoch said in an application on March 13, seeking to terminate the long running trial of interdicted Registrar of Title Deeds for Kilifi Athman Otime Juma, to enable a new investigation that will include Mung’aro and Mabeya.
The settlement of squatters in the scheme has been beset by claims of corruption, double and multiple allocations. There are 300 cases lodged in Kilifi and Malindi courts on these allocations and one of the most prominent ones is against Juma, who was charged in 2010 with illegally issuing a lease letter to a Karisa Mole Mbitha.
Until the case was withdrawn on March 13, the prosecution alleged that Juma issued the lease to Mbitha on September 29, 2010, while knowing that another lease existed for the same land, held by Malindi Masketeers. Mung’aro was listed as a prosecution witness.
Bank accounts
Mung’aro has cried foul over the investagation, citing “the hand of my political detractors in this whole thing” but the State, through Achoch, maintains that the MP and Mabeya were wrongfully let off the hook by police officer who investigated the controversial allocations.
“After going through the police file, we have discovered that some of the witnesses ought to have been charged,” Achoch said and announced that he was under orders to terminate Juma’s trial to allow further investigations.
Mung’aro’s troubles appear to emanate from his alleged connection to Karisa Mole Mbitha, who police say was allocated land in the scheme and given a title by Athman on the MP’s recommendation.
According to a statement the CID says it got from Mbitha on August 14, 2012, the semi-literate man hails from Jilore in Kilifi County and was Mung’aro’s house servant for many years.
Mbitha says that some time in 2010, Mung’aro approached him and a man identified as John Rick Gona with an offer to help them get free land.
“He explained to us that there were some free plots he wanted to give us,” Mbitha says in the statement, adding that the MP asked them to sign forms, which he took together with their photographs and returned months later to help them open bank accounts.
In a letter to senior assistant director public prosecution in Malindi, director public prosecution in Malindi, Vincent Wohoro, dated March 3, 2014, Athman Juma said he received 20 government leases and was instructed to issue certificate of leases to beneficiaries, including Mung’aro, Mbitha and Gona.
He said the then commissioner of lands told him to issue the certificate of lease through a letter dated September 28, 2010. Mung’aro was allocated Kilifi/Jimba/340, Mbitha Chembe/Kibabamshe/420 and Gona Kilifi/Jimba/383.
In his statement, Mbitha says the MP informed him and Gona that he had got them the promised land, but at the same time “he had somebody who wanted to purchase it. He wanted it to be sold so that I could get some money.”
Mbitha claims that without stating the amount of money involved, Mung’aro said the money would be deposited in their bank accounts.
The MP is then said to have sold the land, Chembe/Kibabamshe/420, for an undisclosed amount. Mbitha says he later discovered that Sh300,000 had been deposited in his bank account.
Property transfer
After some time, according to the statement, things began to go awry for Mbitha. He say that in July 2012, he learnt that the land had been sold for Sh45 million when it actually belonged to someone else.
“I was also shown a transfer of property with my photograph, showing I sold the land to two people, a man and woman, for Sh45,000,000, which I have denied since I do not know them,” says the statement.
When we read this statement to Mung’aro, he denied its contents and would not disclose if he knew Mbitha.
Speaking on the telephone from Nairobi, Mung’aro, however, admitted that when he served as Malindi MP, he wrote to then Lands Minister James Orengo and Commissioner of Lands Zablon Mabeya, seeking to have his constituents allocated land at the scheme.
As a result, he said, a task force funded by the Malindi Constituency Development Fund was formed to manage the settlement.
“I helped my constituents get land at Chembe/Kibabamshe as the MP, but I never sold land at Sh45 million as alleged,” Mung’aro said.
We then called the number on the police statement registered as Mbitha’s, but the man who received the call said, “I am not Karisa Mole Mbitha, and I do not know anything about that land.”
Disowned statement
Meanwhile, Mung’aro has also disowned a statement he allegedly recorded with the Criminal Investigations Department on June 6, 2013, indicating knowledge of how plot number 420 was allocated to a Karisa Mole Mbitha and later sold to Dava Limited.
In the statement, the MP allegedly acknowledged receiving several leases from Mabeya “to take to the District Lands Registrar in Kilifi for purposes of registration,” adding the alleged leases were for plots in Chembe Kibabamshe and Kilifi Jimba and included Chembe/Kibabamshe/420 “which was registered in the name Karisa Mole Mbitha who I knew.”
The statement adds that Mbitha’s transactions were done through his advocate.
This statement also mentioned the task force that Mung’aro talked about in the telephone conversation.
Meanwhile, a letter allegedly written by a Judiciary official last year alleges that Mung’aro, Karisa and Gona benefited from government leases with 17 others in 2010.
The official says that by the time the leases were prepared at the Lands headquarters in 2010, 19 of the 20 parcels were vacant because 12 previous beneficiaries had not honoured the conditions of the Settlement Fund Trustees while seven parcels had not been allocated.
When contacted, Mabeya said he could not comment because he had no idea the court case was going on.
