State gives squatters one month to agree on how to share Sh12 billion land

Cabinet Secretary for Lands Farida Karoney speaks during her tour to Machakos lands offices in Machakos town on January 28, 2019. [John Muia/Standard]

The Government has given four groups of squatters a month to agree on how to share a Sh12 billion land.

The National Land Commission (NLC) and National Assembly's Land Committee recommended that the 419 acres be given to the more than 1,500 squatters, but they disagreed on how to share it.

Each of the groups - Kamiti Anmer Development Association (KADA), Muungano wa Kamiti Society, Kamiti Forest Squatters Association and Kamiti Anmer Squatters Welfare - is fighting over the property.

The Kenya Forest Service (KFS) has also laid claim to the land.  

Yesterday, Kiambu sub-county Deputy County Commissioner Kiarie Njuguna said the squatters must agree on how to share the land within a month, as the government seeks to end chaos that have rocked planned distribution of the land. 

Njuguna issued the directive during a meeting attended by State officials and the warring groups.

“There is need to use an alternative dispute resolution mechanism on this matter. We are expecting surveyors to demarcate the land and we will not allow anyone to disrupt that exercise,” he said.

The administrator warned the groups against hiring militias to attack each other or the surveyors.

“The Government will be firm against those who will try to bring militia here. And I can assure you the law will take its course against those who will try to interfere with the process,” said Njuguna.

KFS says the land belongs to it, but the squatters have maintained the government gave it to them in the early 1990s.

NLC, in a gazette notice dated March 1, 2019, allowed claims by KADA that it was the rightful owner of the land. “Allotment letters issued by members of the second claimant (Kamiti Anmer Development Association) are found to be valid and therefore they are the rightful occupants of the subject land,” reads the gazette notice by NLC. 

NLC directed KADA to adopt alternative dispute resolution mechanisms.

Two weeks ago, the Lands Committee chaired by Kitui South MP Rachel Nyamai asked that the land be given to the landless. In a report tabled in the House, MPs want the tittles already issued to members of the four groups be regularised.

The land, part of Kamiti Forest Reserve, was surveyed in 1954. At least 149 title deeds have since been issued at the Kiambu land registry to individuals. “After a visit, the committee found that the land was nearly fully occupied, as evidenced by presence of residential houses, schools constructed using public funds, water and electricity services, churches and a cemetery among other facilities," says the report.

KADA chairman PMG Kamau was optimistic the groups would agree on how to share the land. But his Muungano Wa Kamiti Squatters counterpart Peter Mwaura claimed a plot to lock genuine squatters out.