CS Ogamba Issues Eviction Notice to Kenyans on School Land

The government will soon begin evicting Kenyans living on land owned by public institutions according to Education Cabinet Secretary (CS) Julius Ogamba. The directive comes hours after it emerged that the Ministry of Health cannot trace the title deed for Afya House.

Ogamba revealed this while directing all education directors to begin an audit of all educational institutions in the country to ensure that they possess a valid land title deed.

“It is our responsibility and I’m encouraging all our education directors in all the counties in the country to undertake an audit to ensure that every institution, the land, is protected and we get the title deeds for it where they are not,” Ogamba stated during the opening of new JSS classrooms at Kakamega Primary and Junior Secondary School on Wednesday.

He added, “We will work with the Ministry of Land to ensure that all our institutions, not just educational institutions, but all our government institutions, get their titles so that we can protect our land for the future.”

The tough-talking Education CS threatened to use government machinery to conduct forceful evictions in areas where Kenyans have encroached on public land.

“I want to put on notice those people who think that land belonging to institutions is available for encroachment or grabbing. Please start exiting because we will ensure with the government team, with the government machinery, that we take back the land that belongs to the institution,” he asserted.

Public schools are very vulnerable to cases of land-grabbing with reports indicating that around 70 per cent of them lack ownership documents for the land they are built on.

As of 2019, only 30 per cent of 32,354 public schools had secured title deeds, leaving over 22,648 schools exposed to potential land grabbing. About 4,100 schools have formally reported being at risk.

The problem affects even the largest of public institutions. On Tuesday, Medical Services Principal Secretary Harry Kimtai informed the National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that the Ministry of Health lacks title deeds for the land on which its headquarters are located.

This revelation comes amid reports that eight acres of land belonging to Mathari Teaching and Referral Hospital have been encroached upon by an undisclosed private developer who has erected a temporary fence on the unfenced portion of the property.

“It is true that the Ministry did not disclose land and buildings in its financial statements. This is mainly because a valuation has not yet been conducted,” Kimtai said while responding to audit queries raised by Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu.

On Monday, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) warned about a gang using forged documents to sell land belonging to unsuspecting Kenyans in Nairobi.