Governor Mutua links Kalonzo and Muthama to land grabbing

Machakos Governor Alfred Mutua follows the proceedings during the Senate Committee sitting when he clashed with Senator Johnstone Muthama over corruption allegations of Machakos County at Parliament Buildings Nairobi 30/11/16 PHOTO MOSES OMUSULA

Machakos Governor Alfred Mutua yesterday linked Wiper party leader Kalonzo Musyoka and an unnamed senator to land grabbing in his county.

The governor tabled a dossier before the Senate Public Accounts Committee, where Kalonzo was mentioned as a beneficiary of grabbed public land in Mavoko, together with area MP Patrick Makau and a prominent senator.

Mr Mutua, who was appearing before the Senate watchdog team to answer to queries raised by the Auditor General during his first year in office, asked the senators to form a team to investigate the three leaders.

"We have cartels with strong political connections that finance brokers to invade public land with impunity," he said.

According to a letter dated February 24, 2015, that was authored by Governor Mutua's lawyers, Kalonzo was accused of illegally influencing the allocation to himself, and through proxies, two parcels of land in Mavoko municipality when he was vice president.

Kalonzo's name is mentioned in the letter that was written by a city law firm to the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC), the National Land Commission and the chairman of the Commission on Administrative Justice and copied to the governor.

One of the parcels of land is registered in the name of Desirai Ltd which, according to Mutua, is registered in the name of Kalonzo and his spouse. The former VP is also linked to the irregular acquisition of another 4,000 hectares of land.

And Mr Makau, in a letter by the Machakos governor to the EACC on November 13, 2015, is alleged to be behind the grabbing of five pieces of land belonging to the East African Portland Cement.

Speaking after he tabled the documents, Mutua told the committee that in 2011, in a mission to corruptly obtain money for political campaigns, the then Mavoko Municipal Council approved the construction of an estate named 360 Degrees on a riparian land.

Session chairperson Senator Martha Wangari (nominated) directed that the committee interrogate the documents in depth today.

Earlier, Mutua and Senator Johnstone Muthama clashed when the latter accused Dr Mutua of tabling 'fabricated documents'.

Auditor General Edward Ouko, in his report, had faulted the county administration for paying Sh30 million to the Kenya Rural Electrification Authority yet there was no appropriate work plan indicating areas to be supplied with electricity.

The governor, while responding to the query, presented a document dated February 25, 2013, which immediately caught the eye of the senator, who pointed out that the county government was not in place then.