Hard queries as Taj Mall finally tumbles down

Anti-riot police lob teargas to people who were plotting to loot at Airgate Mall, formerly Taj Mall, during its demolition amid Government efforts to reclaim restricted land on September 15, 2018. [Stafford Ondego, Standard]

As Kenyans continue to celebrate the demolition of Taj Mall that has for a long time been the face of how protection of individual interests can mess up a country, the hard task now is figuring out who will pay for the redesign of Nairobi’s Outering Road.

Tax payers are already burdened with the Sh9.2 billion loan committed for the construction of the road after its budget was pushed up from an initial Sh7.4 million in 2015 just after construction started.

Big question

The government is still putting up 11 footbridges at a cost of Sh880 million (Sh80 million per bridge) on a completely different budget line from the Sh9.2 billion channeled to the construction of Outering Road.

Now, the big question is who will be held responsible for the three-year standoff between businessman Ramesh Gorasia and the state that ended up with green bulldozers tearing up a Sh1 billion property that was opened by former Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka.

What is clear though is that the embarrassment on the State caused by officials who cleared the building and are still in office, will take time to fade. The financial effects of their actions will remain permanent.

Transport Cabinet Secretary James Macharia told Sunday Standard that there will be a re-design of the junction between Outering Road and the Eastern bypass where Taj Mall sits.

“If the mall was on a road reserve then it means that there was purpose for that land. We are not demolishing Taj Mall so that things remain the way they are. There is a purpose for that demolition,” he said.

Ironically, it is the same government that gave Gorasia an “all clear” when construction of Outering Road begun. Part of the concessions made by government at that time involved redesigning the highway to accommodate the mall, later renamed Airgate Centre.

“This is to clarify that the current construction of Outer Ring Road will not require Taj Mall building to be demolished,” Kenya Urban Roads Authority, through its managing director Sila Kinoti, wrote to Taj Mall on November 24, 2014.

The National Lands Commission (NLC), which had initially gazzetted the two plots of land that Taj Mall stood on, made an about-turn and also issued assurances to the property’s owner. “Kenya Urban Roads Authority (KURA) has redesigned the road such that the building would not be affected or demolished,” wrote NLC chairman Mohamed Swazuri in March 2016.

Why the government had to redesign a major road in order to accommodate a building is still an unanswered question. Who has been protecting the mall from being touched for all these years also begs answers.

What is clear though is that tax payers will pay for the sins of a few individuals that allowed the mall to stand when everyone else could see that it was misplaced.

Clearance letters

After weeks of open show of bravado, hard headedness and grandeur, the businessman cum politician mall owner was in the end left with clearance letters that meant nothing to a government determined to bring his mall down.

“It is criminal whatever they have done. The land officer who gave me the clearance letter is a criminal and the people demolishing my building are criminals. Someone must be held economically and criminally responsible,” he said.

KURA Director General Silas Kinoti who in 2016 had Okayed the existence of the mall saying it’s positioning had no impact on the space required for the construction of Outering road has shifted goal posts.

“NLC clarified early this month that the mall actually occupies a section of Outer Ring Road and our efforts to maximise the existing corridor around the junction have proved difficult resulting to serious traffic flow challenges,” he told Sunday Standard.

“Motorist should now expect functional slip roads, service roads and other necessary facilities,” he said.

At the moment, motorists who want to join Mombasa Road from Outering Road have to go all the way into land hived off from the airport. This anomaly is part of the modifications the government intends to carry out and the money will come from taxpayers.

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