Court suspends construction of Sh2 trillion Lamu port ahead of Uhuru visit

Malindi, Kenya: The High Court in Malindi has suspended construction of the Sh2 trillion Lamu port, throwing into doubt President Uhuru Kenyatta's scheduled ground breaking on Tuesday next week.

The court ruled that no works will proceed for 14 days pending the inter-party hearing of a petition filed by owners of the land on which the Government is intending to build the port.

The 146 land owners have petitioned the court to force the Government to compensate them before construction of the proposed port. Yesterday, Malindi Land and Environment High Court judge Oscar Angote stopped the Ministry of Lands from interfering with the petitioners' parcels of land.

Justice Angote said there was urgent need to listen to the petitioners' complaints. "It is hereby ordered that the petition dated November 26 be certified as urgent," he said.

The judge then ordered that no work should proceed on site until the dispute was brought back to his court after 14 days.

"An order of injunction ... is hereby issued for 14 days against the third and fourth respondents by themselves, employees, agents, assigns or any other person acting on their behalf from commencing or continuing with the dredging, constructing, working on the land, doing Lamu port related work or in any other manner interfering with the petitioners' occupation of their respective parcels of land, pending hearing of the petition inter partes," he said.

The President was scheduled to travel to Lamu next week to launch construction of the first three berths. Preparations for the launch were complete and authorities had brought in heavy machinery and a dredging ship for the Chinese firm awarded the contract to build the first three berths.

The court's move is expected to delay further the construction of the port, in which landlocked nations like South Sudan and Ethiopia are partners under the Lamu Port-Southern Sudan-Ethiopia Transport (Lapsset) Corridor project.

The nations have complained that the Kenya government is delaying commencement of the port.

AGREED PRICE

Suing on behalf of the 146 land owners, the petitioners - Omar Jelani, Kassim Shahali Ali, Shumi Bamkuu, Swaleh Atik and Mohammed Rajab - asked the court to also order the Government to compensate them at an earlier agreed price of Sh1.5 million per acre.

The petitioners had sued the Attorney General, Ministry of Lands, Kenya Ports Authority, Lapsset Development Authority and National Land Commission.

In the petition filed by lawyer George Wakahiu, the land owners claimed that three years ago, the Government sent Transport Permanent Secretary Cyrus Njiru and afterwards, Secretary to the Cabinet Francis Kimemia to assure them of compensation.

They said the State later dispatched a team of valuers from the Lands ministry who came up with a list of 146 genuine land owners, adding they had now been shortchanged.

The judge directed the inter-parties petition hearing to commence on December 8.