By Our Reporter
The National Assembly’s Committee on Lands met with the National lands Commission (NLC) officials who had been summoned as part of an inquiry into the status of land compensation in the country.
This was the committee’s second sitting on the matter, having met with the road agencies last month, with the Managing Director of the Kenya Railways Authority set to appear to shed light on why the corporation was yet to settle monies owed to Project affected persons (PAP’s) who had relinquished their land for the construction of the Standard Gauge railway (SGR) in the year 2015.
However, the Managing Director failed to appear and instead sent a letter on June 14, 2023, stating that he was preoccupied with other commitments related to the Budget reading process.
With this being the second invitation that the MD had failed to honour, the lawmakers expressed their dissatisfaction with the Managing Director’s response, accusing him of taking the committee for granted.
In his submissions NLC chair Mr. Gershom Otachi informed the committee that they had paid a total of Sh48.7 billion to PAP’s for the four phases of the projects being: Mombasa to Nairobi for phase one, Nairobi to Naivasha for phase 2, The Naivasha ICD for phase 3 and, The passenger line for phase 4 despite not receiving funds from Kenya Railways Corporation.
However, discrepancies were highlighted in the submissions, particularly when Kaloleni MP, Paul Katana, pointed out that two parcels of land to be compensated were similar, with one of them having already received 1.8 billion. This raised concerns and questions regarding the payments made and the number of court cases the NLC were facing due to their ineffectiveness in resolving land compensation matters.
“NLC has been losing a lot of tax payers’ money in court. What efforts has your legal department and the management done to stop the magnitude of court cases that are facing the commission,” Katana.
He further added, “This committee needs a detailed report of all the case that the NLC have had with regard to failures by the NLC in settling land repayment matters.”
North Mugirango constituency MP Joash Nyamoko who chairs the parliamentary committee adjourned the sitting to allow for the committee to investigate the submissions further and to allow the Committee to sermon the Kenya Railways MD.
