City plot dispute divides lands agency

Fighting among National Land Commission (NLC) bosses over multibillion-shilling payouts is threatening to ground operations at the agency.

Slightly more than a year after they took office, it has emerged that there is a fallout between NLC chairman Gerishom Otachi and the commissioners.

The split was played out on Thursday during a six-hour informal meeting of the commissioners.

Mr Otachi found himself on the defensive, with colleagues accusing him of being a loner, indecisive and failing to protect the interests of the public and the land agency.

So stormy was the meeting, according to a source, that the commissioners fell short of adopting a resolution of no confidence in Mr Otachi’s leadership.

The bone of contention is the decision by the NLC to pay Sh1.5 billion to city businesswoman Roseline Njeri Macharia as compensation for the plot on which City Cabanas restaurant sits.

The 4.040ha land is one of the 72 parcels the Kenya National Highways Authority (Kenha) has identified for acquisition for the Nairobi expressway that runs from Mlolongo to the James Gichuru junction on Waiyaki Way.

Disputed plot

The commission gave Ms Macharia the money despite a court directive stopping the payment, pending the determination of a case filed by a company laying claim to the land.

On April 18, Simandi Investments went to the High Court and obtained orders against NLC and Kenha in an effort to freeze Ms Macharia’s bank accounts.

During the Thursday meeting, the commissioners accused Mr Otachi of receiving the order but not informing them.

On February 25, the NLC boss called a meeting whose main agenda was to discuss the disputed plot and valuation and taxation committee report.

Two claims were lodged in relation to the land. The NLC was to decide and vote on the rightful owner, based on the findings of the committee, and approve payments.

The committee recommended the compensation for the plot in line with the findings of the Ministry of Lands and the office of the deputy inspector-general of police subject to the charges registered against the title.

The minutes of the valuation and taxation committee, which approved the payments, admits there were two competing claims of ownership of the land.

“A delay in determination of the right person to receive compensation will occasion a delay in the commission’s ability to make available land to the acquiring body and by extension to the contractor accessing the site, which is urgently required for the implementation of an operations centre by the Kenya urban roads authority (Kura),” the report says.

“There was mounting pressure from Kenha to have the same availed.”

According the minutes, investigations by the Ministry of Lands and the police concluded that Ms Macharia was the genuine owner of the land. The two said her documents were authentic.

After Mr Otachi called the meeting to order, he recused himself during the discussion of the report to approve the payments.

Compensation

He said the businesswoman had accused him of bias and he did not want to be part of the proceedings.

It later emerged that he was served with the court order which he chose not to bring to the attention of his colleagues.

In what a commissioner described as a “diabolical turnaround”, Mr Otachi would several days later accuse his colleagues of having disregarded the court and approved the payments.

In a zoom forum that preceded the Thursday meeting, Mr Otachi made reference to an email and a memo he purportedly wrote to the commission and the secretariat informing them of the order.

When challenged to forward the email to his colleagues, Mr Otachi could not.

It would then emerge that the memo was written in April and backdated to January.

The commission boss did not pick calls or respond to text messages from the Sunday Nation in which we sought his side of the story.

During the inquiry, the registered owner of the land, based on the search leading to the publication of the gazette notice, presented a claim for compensation and ownership documents.

It was after the conclusion of the inquiry that a competing claim was lodged with the commission, complete with a set of additional documents relating to the same land.

It was presented to the projects’ valuation team.

The compensation for land was then stopped, pending resolution of the competing claims but improvements were awarded to Cabanas Park.

According the minutes, the notice of intention to acquire the piece of land was published through a notice in the Kenya Gazette on March 12, 2020.

Notice of Inquiry was published in the Kenya Gazette on September 4, 2020 and was held between September 29 and October 1.

It was after the conclusion of the inquiry that Simandi Investments Ltd lodged a competing claim with the commission relating to the same Cabanas land.

On December 22, the Kenya Police Service wrote to the Commission requesting documents submitted to it by Simandi Investments Ltd in relation to the disputed plot.

False documents

The letter stated that police were investigating the offence of making a false documents, uttering false documents and procuring execution of documents by false pretence.

Investigations revealed that the documents presented by the directors of Simandi Investments Lt lacked a letter of allotment and payment receipts, which would form the basis of any title preparation.

“Investigations of certificate of title No. 161289 for LR No. 209/11293/1 in favour of Simeon Nyamanya Ondinba and Mary Nyamanya purportedly issued pursuant to a nullified lease and issued IR no. 161289, the deed file could not be traced at the registry,” the report by the investigators said.

According to the Land Information Management System (LIMS), the document captured for IR 161289 pertains to parcel LR 24641 a piece of land situated in Machakos County, leased to Cedilla Ltd. It says the land measures 74.20 ha and not 4.047 that is City Cabanas Restaurant.

Mr Ondimba was charged with forgery on January 18.

[email protected]