Senators peep through gate as they are blocked from inspecting disputed land

Senate Health Committee members Michael Mbito (Chairperson), Abdullahi Ali (Wajir) and Milicent Omanga (Nominated) at Highridge Clinic, Parklands. [Boniface Okendo,Standard]

Senators were yesterday forced to conduct an inspection of an alleged grabbed land in Nairobi by the roadside after they were denied access to the facility.

The Senate Standing Committee on Health members, led by Senators Michael Mbito (Chairperson), Abdullahi Ali (Wajir) and Milicent Omanga (Nominated) visited Highridge Clinic in Parklands that sits on a parcel of public land allegedly allocated to a private developer.

The senators were responding to a statement requested by Mrs Omanga in the Senate on November 2021. 

In her statement, she had claimed a private developer had put up a commercial property on public land. 

For close to one hour, the MPs were stranded outside the gate, with some peeping through the gate. Only a guard was at the site.

Nairobi Metropolitan Services County Director for Health Services Ouma Oluga accompanied the MPs, who gave his boss Mohammed Badi seven days to appear before the committee to clear the air on the land’s ownership. 

“We shall seek to find out whether the due process was ever followed,” Mbito said.

Omanga claimed Nairobi was becoming synonymous with grabbing of public land and accused concerned authorities of doing little to stop the menace. “I’m the one who brought up the statement because this is a clinic where I used to come when I was young,” she said. [David Njaaga]

I was treated in this clinic here, but today,  private developers, have taken up the land,” she said.

Mbito said the construction site previously had a clinic but has since been given to a private contractor who is now putting up flats.