The Government of Kenya has been put on the spot over a land compensation where a family was awarded Ksh300 million, which the government is yet to pay.
According to the family, the court awarded them the money after the government hived off part of their land located along the Northern Bypass in Nairobi.
”The government took 16.5 hectares of land and I have never been paid a single penny despite my neighbours being paid their compensation,” Nancy Gatabaki, the woman at the centre of the issue, told the media.
The family further revealed an inside plan orchestrated by some persons within the government using private companies, scheming to grab part of the land.
A bypass traversing through Nairobi.
Photo
KeNHA
Among some of the private developers who have been encroaching on the land according to Gatabaki are Chinese developers.
The family, led by a widow, has appealed to President William Ruto to help them after a court awarded them Ksh300 million for unlawful encroachment of their land.
Gatabaki’s family now has shifted the blame to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) for having hidden interests in the remaining land.
”My land has always been 206 hectares and I have never sold any part of it. The DCI has come to my house telling me that I have 360 hectares and informed me that I sold part of that land,” she stated
”I asked them which lawyer they have their records of me going to formalize the agreement. Where was the money deposited after the sale?”
The cries come just months after the court, in September this year via a ruling made by Justice Ogutu Mboya, ruled that the family was to be compensated for trespass into their land.
This was after the Kenya Urban Roads Authority(KURA) and the National Lands Commission(NLC) sliced off part of the land to construct the Northern Bypass in Nairobi.
According to court documents, compensation was awarded for the damages the family suffered as a result of the trespass. The court was to later set a date for the real valuation of the land before a suitable package could be ruled on.
An electricity power pole on a vast of land.
ESI Africa