State loses claim to Thika Road land in botched purchase

Signages on Thika Super Highway [Elvis Ogina, Standard]

The government has lost a court battle over six acres of prime land on Thika Road.

The Lands ministry bought the property from Springdew Properties in 2009 for Sh29 million for the expansion of Thika Road. The parcel was, however, not utilised.

Six years later, the company reached out to the ministry and refunded the money so it could build a mall on the property.

But in 2017, Springdew learnt that the land had appeared in the Kenya Gazette as a road reserve.

In court papers, the firm said it had already spent Sh25 million on mall construction by then.

Justice Lucy Gacheru ordered the government to compensate Springdew in the event it wants to use the property for an interchange and bus park.

“It is the court’s considered view that the petitioner, having exercised its pre-emptive rights and having reimbursed the compensation paid to it fully, validly reacquired the said land as it had not been utilised for the purpose it was intended for by the time it sought to exercise its rights,” she said.

“Therefore, the petitioner cannot be blamed for the misgivings of the first respondent (National Land Commission), who has an obligation to efficiently and effectively conduct its duties.”

The court verdict exposes the blunders that cost taxpayers millions of shillings.

It would mean forking out hundreds of millions of shillings for the land today, going by current market rates for the area where an acre costs over Sh40 million.

Reimbursed

The court heard that the Lands ministry received the reimbursement, gazetted the land as private property but later de-gazetted it, claiming it was public.

This prompted a court battle and led to a blame game between Kenya National Highways Authority and the National Land Commission (NLC).

Edmond Gichuru, a legal affairs and enforcement deputy director at NLC, in his April 23, 2018 affidavit blamed former chair  Mohammed Swazuri for gazetting the contested property as private property after the Springdew reimbursement.

He said Prof Swazuri signed the document without following the right procedure, and that he did not agree with the position.

Once the land became public, there was no process of reverting it to private use, Mr Gichuru said. He claimed the commission revoked Swazuri’s gazette notice to “correct a wrong position”.