By Kenneth Kwama
Narok, Kenya: Narok County Governor Samuel Tunai owns huge swathes of land at an animal sanctuary called Paradise Plain. It is located on the borders of the Maasai Mara Game Reserve through a company called Oloololo Game Ranch Ltd, which he jointly owns with his brother, Kijabe Kuya Tonai.
Documents in our possession show that the firm whose directors are listed as the Narok governor and his brother, Kijabe Kuya at the Registrar’s of Companies, was awarded the title deed to land title number Narok/Trans-Mara/Oloololo/1 on June 22, 1993. The land measures 954.9 hectares or 2,359.6 acres.
It has been subject of controversy since September 2003 when a settlement comprising a group of Maasai people from the Siria sub-clan was invaded at night and huts and school that served up to 300 families burned to the ground.
According to the minutes of Oloololo Game Ranch Ltd board meeting held on September 15, 2003 and which was only attended by Tunai and his brother, Kijabe who is listed as the chairman, complaints had been received from tourists that the presence of grazing cattle in the vicinity of a part of the ranch referred to as Kichwa Tembo and Bateleur Camps, was a hindrance to the free flow of wildlife to the camps.
Extracts of the minutes state that ‘after exhaustive deliberation; “it was resolved that the company instructs Messrs Kilukumi and Co. Advocates to seek appropriate legal remedy against the persons who have trespassed to the company’s land and the chairman of the board of directors was mandated to swear all the necessary court documents.”
In the ensuing court case, the Siria argued that their former settlement was trust land, but the judge handed control over the land and over a share of the tourism revenues from Kichwa Tembo Tented Camp, Bateleur Camp and Kichwa Tembo airstrip, which are all located on the vast piece of land to OloololoGame Ranch Ltd.
The agreement signed between the Mara Conservancy — a firm in which Tunai, a former intelligence officer is a director and County Council of Transmara makes him the single largest individual with the biggest stake in the world-famous Mara.
But the big question is whether the governor could be risking potential lawsuits in the quest to expand his influence over the Masai Mara.
Clean bill of health
The case against Equity could be valid, but the bank’s earnings pale in comparison to what Tunai’s firm earns for doing similar work in another part of the Mara.
The figures too, may be too compelling for the bank.
Documents in our possession show that the bank nearly doubled collections from visitors to the park after it collected Sh1.58 billion during the 2011/12 financial year, a massive improvement over the Sh837 million collected by the council’s manual system at the gates during the 2010/11 financial year.
The Departmental Parliamentary Committee chaired by former Kinangop MP David Ngugi investigated the smart card procurement process, implementation and its effects after the issue was raised in the House by then Narok South MP Nkoidila oleLankas.
The committee visited the park and Narok town and gathered views from stakeholders and gave a clean bill of health after witnessing its operations.
