Kenya Railways Corporation (KRC) has won back a multi-million shilling parcel of land in Mombasa, which had been allocated to a private firm over three decades ago.
Environment and Land Court judge Nelly Matheka ruled that the allocation of the 1.1-acre parcel in Changamwe was illegal as the Commissioner of Lands had no powers to allocate the land to private individuals.
According to the judge, the Government Land Act did not give the Commissioner of Lands any powers or authority to alienate the property and issue a certificate of lease.
“It is, therefore, the findings of this court that the Commissioner of Lands had no powers to allocate the suit property to private individuals or confer any title, the purported allocation of the suit property to Combined Warehouse Limited was an illegality and cannot be sustained,” said the judge.
The corporation maintained that it was the owner of the land but that it was illegally allocated to Combined Warehouse Ltd between 1987 and 1990.
KRC said that on September 29, 1994, Combined Warehouse Ltd sold the land to Swan Millers Ltd for Sh8 million.
And despite being registered as the proprietor, Combined Warehouse or Swan Millers did not physically possess the property.
The corporation said its tenant, Aries Kenya Limited, was in possession of the land and had developed three warehouses, an office block, and paved an open yard. KRC said it was apprehensive that the land might be sold to a third party because Swan Millers was placed under liquidation. Further, KRC said Swan Millers had defaulted in paying land rates, which stood at Sh7.6 million as of September 2016.
KRC sought a permanent injunction stopping the two from laying claim on the land, selling or transferring the same.
Justice Matheka said the transfer of the property to Combined Warehouse Limited was unlawful and the title deed was irregularly issued.
The judge said the law then gave the President the sole discretion to alienate un-alienated government land.
She said where the President delegated the powers to alienate government land to the Commissioner of Land, these powers were limited to certain circumstances such as religious, charitable, educational, or sports and other purposes set out in the said Act.
