PSs deny role in city demolitions

Four permanent secretaries on Tuesday refused to take responsibility for the controversial demolition of houses in Nairobi.

Appearing before the Joint Parliamentary Committee investigating the issue, the chief accounting officers either blamed the building owners or passed the buck to another entity.

Security PS Francis Kimemia denied ordering the demolitions; his Lands counterpart Dorothy Angote blamed the occupants for ignorance as Transport ministry’s Cyrus Njiru passed the buck to the Kenya Airports Authority. Local Government PS Karega Mutahi said “we were all conned.”

Journalists were barred from reporting what Defence PS Nancy Kirui said.

Mr Kimemia told the committee that his role was to ensure security was provided to those who were demolishing property.

The PS said the directive was from a Cabinet decision in April 14, last year to have all Provincial Security Committees ensure no building or structure was a threat to security.

But the parliamentary team sought to know why such a decision took more than a year to be implemented.

“The directive was given to all ministries and it is up to them to determine when to implement a decision,” he responded.

When confronted to explain why demolitions on Syokimau land went own despite a case pending in court, Mr Kimemia said: “I don’t demolish buildings. I don’t think I can take responsibility for destruction of property. I can’t be drawn into the ownership issues of the property.”

Dynamic industry

Dr Njiru told the committee that the aviation industry being dynamic, it was not early enough to determine that the houses were a threat to aircraft safety.

But when asked to explain whether he issued the directive to destroy houses, he said that was the responsibility of the Kenya Airports Authority.

“We oversee, we supervise but we leave the individual agencies for their day-to-day operations.”

It was more confusing when Prof Mutahi was grilled. The committee asked him why Mavoko Municipal Council was collecting land rates on the parcel in Syokimau which according to Ms Angote is supposed to be in Nairobi.

Prof Mutahi told the MPs his ministry was not aware that the boundary between Kathiani Constituency in which Syokimau was initially situated had been moved in 1996 to allow the land to be in Embakasi (Nairobi).

He claimed local authorities could approve building plans without determining the ownership of the land on which they would be constructed.

“We only came to know about the ownership of KAA during the hullabaloo of demolitions. Everyone involved in these developments has been conned because someone took advantage of Kenyans to sell them land using a fake title.”

Ms Angote maintained that the land in Syokimau is owned by KAA, but said she was yet to receive any complaints on other pieces of land in Kyang’ombe, Eastleigh and Mitumba.