The entrance to Shimo La Tewa Prisons in Shanzu.
The State faces a herculean task and is struggling to recover thousands of acres of grabbed Kenya Prisons Service land, amid plans to lease part of its idle parcels of land to investors.
President William Ruto last week issued a directive to have idle land owned by correctional facilities across the country leased to private investors for development purposes.
Speaking during the launch of National Police and State Department of Correctional Services Strategic Plans 2023-2027 on December 13, Dr Ruto said that the move was meant to improve the productivity of lands.
According to the Head of State, there was a lot of land under the custody of the prison service that was going to waste since no activities were being done to maximise their productivity.
He explained that leasing the idle parcels of land to private investors would mitigate food insecurity by ensuring continuous food production.
However, a report by the Auditor General Nancy Gathungu, currently before the National Assembly's Public Accounts Committee, paints a picture of a government already frustrated in its bid to recover the parcels of land worth more than Sh3 billion due to court cases filed by grabbers.
In the report the Auditor General has indicted the State Department of Correctional Services for failing to provide a report on the irregular occupants of prison land.
"The State Department has been struggling to take action, including the eviction of illegal occupants of prison department land in compliance with government directives," reads the report in part.
"KPS has also been deterred from taking action due to numerous pending cases.”
The latest audit on the accounts of the State Department of Correctional Services for the 2022/2023 financial year, shows that of the 22,693.15 acres of land belonging to correctional facilities across the country,4,242.71 acres have been illegally encroached.
According to the report, the continued encroachment and alienation has led to a decrease in size of the prisons land across the country.
The report further reveals that some of the correctional facilities are now literally "squatters on their own land."
According to the report, the most affected are the Kitale GK Prison, Nakuru GK Prison and the Shimo La Tewa, whose land has been illegally alienated and allocated to private individuals with efforts by the Kenya Prisons Department to reclaim the property hampered by numerous litigations in court by suspected illegal settlers.
The report says in some instances, where KPS has had favourable rulings to recover the land, encroachers have appealed necessitating long paths towards the recovery process.
An inspection undertaken by auditors in July 2022, revealed that 2,483.5 acres of land belonging to five sampled correctional facilities across the country are currently occupied by informal settlers that include people, churches and other government institutions.
"They continue to use such land for residential and commercial purposes," reads part of the audit.
For example, the report says in Kitale, 2,321 acres have been illegally alienated and allocated to private individuals, while Shimo La Tewa in Mombasa has lost 141.24 acres.
Nakuru GK Prison has lost over 600 acres of land now occupied by churches and other institutions.
In Narok, 20acres have been illegally alienated and allocated by the county government to private individuals.
The original acreage of the Narok Prison land was 64.8 acres, but 20 have been encroached by private developers.
Others include the Kitui GK Prison, whose land has been occupied by a church and three private individuals.
The report further reveals that 102 prison lands lack title deeds for their land.
Kenya Prisons Service only has title deeds for its land in Naivasha Maximum Prison, Kamiti Maximum Prison, Murang'a, Nyahururu, Busia, Kilgoris, Maralal, Ruiru, Kitengela, Makueni, Ngeria, Woodley staff quarters, Lumumba farm Eldoret and Kibos.
The report shows that the Kenya Prisons Service may have lost huge parcels of land to private developers mostly in the 1990s.
President Ruto's latest directive has now sparked mixed reactions, with some questioning the modalities that will be used by the government to lease the properties.
Governance expert David Ngugi argues that the move may require proper modalities, to avoid losing more land to thirsty grabbers.
"With the State already in a dilemma over the grabbed Kenya Prison Service land, it needs to be careful on leasing to avoid attracting more grabbers. Even those who grabbed the encroached parcels of land may have started off by leasing," said Me Ngugi.
People's Power Watch lobby group Executive Director Jesse Karanja says,the move is a brilliant idea,to avoid wastage of Kenya Prisons Service land.
"Most of the Kenya Prisons Service land in various parts of the country is idle land, which is sometimes leased to cronies of government officials. It is important that the land be put to use, but the government will have to streamline the leasing, to ensure nepotism, tribalism and cronyism does not play out in the process," Mr Karanja told the Nation.
"Otherwise, the leasing may be flawed and may lead to more grabbing of Kenya Prisons Service land," he added.
Recently, the government revealed that it is set to recover grabbed prison land, as part of the Maraga taskforce report recommendations on modernising and reforming the department.
"There are certain serious encroachments on prison land with the most notorious being the Kitale Prison land where out of 3,000 acres only about 300 are available, the rest has been grabbed by powerful and former senior people in various administrations," said Deputy President Prof Kithure Kindiki.
He promised to recover such land by engaging the National Land Commission and other stakeholders.
"Let me say that every prison land must have a title deed, many of our prison lands do not have titles and therefore we are going to protect such land through titling," added Kindiki.
