Investigation into double allocation of beach plots in Malindi underway

By KIBIWOTT KOROSS

A major investigation is underway into the double allocations of beach plots in Malindi said to involve local leaders and senior Lands Ministry officials.

More than 80 beach plots linked to the powerful politicians and land officers are being investigated by the Criminal Investigations Department, with about half of them forwarded to the Director of Prosecutions who has promised that those mentioned will be prosecuted once investigations are over.

Yesterday, Director of Public Prosecutions Keriako Tobiko termed the cases taken to his office from Malindi as overwhelming. He said: “Cases of land complaints from Malindi are massive…they are overwhelming ranging from double registration to overlapping documents. We are investigating a number and those mentioned will be prosecuted.”

Among those being targeted include Kilifi North MP Gideon Mungaro, his close associate Yesse Kombe, Kilifi land registrar JO Athman and a number of former civic leaders and lands officers who served in Malindi.

 Controversial deals

The controversial land deals were linked to the recent failure by President Uhuru Kenyatta to issue title deeds in Malindi County in April when he issued 60,000 title deeds in the neighbouring Kilifi County during his visit to the Coast. Among the 60,000 title deeds to be issued to the squatters in coast region, Kilifi County had the highest number of 19,000. The president said the thorny issue facing coastal people and other parts of the country was that of landless among the people and said his government is committed to prepare and issue about 3 million title deeds to Kenyan across the country in five years’ time.

Besieged former Director of Lands Peter Kahuho is also adversely mentioned in a questionable ministerial taskforce whose recommendations that were never made public. The — now revoked — Lands Cabinet Secretary appointee was sat at the helm of an illegal Special Ministerial taskforce that was to look into allegedly irregular land allocations and issuance of double registration documents within several settlement schemes in Kilifi County.

As the senior most lands official, Kahuho, according to the report was appointed by the then Lands Minister James Orengo to head the 2010 Kilifi Jimba and Chembe Kibambamche Special Ministerial Land taskforce.

The Kilifi Jimba and Chembe Kibambamche settlement schemes are situated on an approximately 15 kilometre stretch of land running along the Indian ocean shores between Malindi town and Watamu tourist towns; some 150 kilometres North East of the coastal city of Mombasa.

Interestingly, this commission however sought to discredit a report by a Kivutha Kibwana led taskforce appointed and gazzetted two years earlier which attempted to solve the already convoluted land ownership debacles in the then coast province dating back to the 1970s.

 Disowned report

They disowned the Kibwana report as hurriedly prepared, incomprehensive and therefore inconsequential. The report was never made public.

Kahuho is named as the chairman of the taskforce that according to their May 12 2009 preliminary report visited Chembe Kibambamche and Kilifi Jimba Settlement Schemes. The team also included Mr E Muoki, a senior Superintending Surveyor, a Mr JKT Kemei then an acting senior Assistant Secretary and a Mr S O Osodo, chief Lands Officer, A Mr E M Kamaru, Senior Settlement Officer, and the then registrar of titles, a Mr B K Leitich.

The team’s findings and succeeding report opened the floodgates of illegal land allocations, double registrations, sale of land using fake titles, and in extreme cases attempted defrauding of banks using questionable title deeds, the politicians and shady but powerful businessmen in Kilifi County.

Unscrupulous traders under the guise of land ownership attempted to defraud a local bank by claiming ownership of two plots in Chembe Kibambamche.

Fidelity Import and Export Limited, through its director Yerry Kombe, in a letter to Co-operative Bank Housing Co-operative Society in our possession sought to know why the institution had taken too much time in carrying out due diligence on the said two plots 399 measuring 10 acres and 409 measuring Eight acres. In the letter dated July 18 2012, Yerry Said: “It has taken a while now and no further communication has been received from yourselves. We would hereby like to know if this transaction is of interest to you and further ask for a communication to enable us understand your commitment to conclude this transaction.”

But acting on behalf of Kenya Real Estates and Ationchia Limited Gekanana and Company advocates wrote to co-operative Bank and Housing co-operative Society against entering into any transaction with Kombe.

Benjamin Binyenya of Gekanana and Company advocates first pointed out that the plots belong to the above mention companies. While attaching a copy of the title deeds of the said plots, he showed that plot 399 measured 7.9 acres and 409 measured 7.4 acres; as such differing with Yerry’s correspondence with the bank.

According to Binyenya’s letter our possession, the two plots belong to his clients and were not for sale. When contacted, Yerry told this writer that he could not comment on phone since he could not establish his true identity. He said he had in the recent past received several calls concerning land in Malindi. He however said h was ready to clear his name over the matter.

He said to The Standard On Saturday on phone: “You see I don’t know you and we have never met. I am in Malindi now and I think we should meet on Tuesday next week we go over it…a lot has been said about me on this and I am ready to clear my name.”

Having visited the area in 2009, the Kahuho team one year later published a detailed report showing land ownerships purportedly in dispute and otherwise.

And from findings of the report; the lands commissioner, Zablon Mabea, in August 12, 2010, published a notice in one of the local dailies lifting an embargo on several land parcels that were now allegedly clean for transactions of any kind.

Eight days later, in his capacity as then Malindi MP, Gideon Mung’aro wrote to the commissioner of land seeking to have 18, and 10 land parcels in Chembe and Jimba schemes respectively allocated to his business partners and close associates. However, one plot was to be allocated to two different people, through the same request letter.

Clean bill

And of the said plots in Chembe, only three had been given clean bill of transaction, while none from those requested for allocation in Jimba had been cleared as per the notice issued and published by the commissioner of lands.

According to the taskforce report most of those who occupied these parcels were not the ones who had been named in Mung’aro’s request letter.

In a strange twist, the taskforce seemed to have swapped some plot numbers of the two settlement schemes. As such Mung’aro’s request letter of allocation in essence did not correspond with those published in the notice. To a casual eye however, the plots numbers in the letter, appear to have embargos lifted by the notice.