Ownership dispute over 30-acre piece of land in Donholm rages on

By RAWLINS OTIENO  and KURIAN MUSA

Nairobi, Kenya: Three self help groups are embroiled in a dispute over a piece of land measuring 30 acres.

Sauti Sacco, with a membership of over 600, says it is the legitimate owners of the stalled Donholm Housing Project while two other groups, Alfajiri and Savanaland, are also staking a claim on its ownership.

Sauti Sacco contends that land allocated Alfajiri was LR NAIROBI/BLOCK 82/4262 and not LR NAIROBI/BLOCK 82/4264 before owned by Sauti Sacco.

Savanaland Self Help Group, on the other hand, has since served Sauti Sacco and Continental Developers, the original owners of the land, with a temporary court injunction barring them from evicting them or interfering with their possession of LRNo 82/4264.

High Court gave an order barring Alfajiri Self Help Group and Sauti Sacco from the land until a suit filed by Savanaland Self Help Group in 2007 claiming ownership of the land is resolved. Already, an unidentified private developer has started construction on the plot, LR NAIROBI/BLOCK 82/8760, which is at the centre of the dispute.

Sauti Sacco, through Desai, Sarvani and Pallan Advocates, said that certain persons are purporting to subdivide, construct, and carry out transactions on the land without its consent.

The law firm through a caveat said: “Any purported allotment, sale, letting, charging, subdivision, construction upon or transaction over or in respect of the property known as NAIROBI/BLOCK 82/8760 without our client’s consent and authority is invalid and amounts to trespass.”

Woman swindled

In addition, Otuoma Estella, the acting manager of Sauti Sacco, said the case in which Sharad Rao Advocates represents the Sacco was yet to be dispensed with following numerous adjournments. Ms Otuoma warned the public against entering into any transaction on the land.

The private developer has been  ferrying construction materials to the site and is said to have bought the land from the groups that purport to own the land.

 “But despite the court orders one of the parties in the case and an administrator in the area have been purporting to allocate and sell the parcel of land to unsuspecting members of the public,” she told The Standard.

Sauti Sacco Chairman Elly Ndwiga said members of the Donholm Housing Project were anxiously waiting for the conclusion of the six-year-old court case to enable them develops their plots.

Documents seen by The Standard show that Sauti Sacco bought 83 acres of land from Continental Developers in 1994 at a cost of Sh108 million.