Politicians deeply involved in fake land allocation - Orengo

By Mutinda Mwanzia

Lands Minister James Orengo has said unscrupulous land dealers and politicians were forging documents to defraud members of the public their hard earned money in shady land transactions.

He said they were issuing fake land ownership documents to members of the public who were eager to spend any amount of money to own land.

Orengo reiterated that politicians were also deeply involved in the allocation of public land to individuals in a bid to gain some mileage.

"Many areas especially in Nairobi have cases where MP’s have used their supporters to invade public land and which they have subdivided and sold to members of the public," said Orengo.

He cited the Syokimau evictions saga as an eye-opener on the extent of the illegal land selling and allocation deals terming the sale of the Syokimau land to residents as fraudulent.

"The group purporting to own the land have no title. Their papers of ownership are pure fraud," said Orengo.

He said the evictions at Syokimau were done due to the fact that the land belonged to the Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) and who had the bona fide title deed.

He however said the demolitions were inhuman and did not take into consideration that the rights of the homeowners had been violated.

"As a lawyer who has for many years fought for the upholding of human rights I can categorically say that the demolitions were against the spirit of the constitution," said Orengo.

But the Lands Minister put the blame squarely on those who had bought the land for failing to make formal searches on its ownership at the ministry headquarters adding the land dealers had duped them.

"The land sellers forged documents, which they fronted to the buyers as real. They are fake and this is very common in a country where individuals have the capacity to make fake US dollars and even notes of Kenyan currency," said Orengo.

Orengo who spoke to reporters at his ministry offices in Nairobi displayed copies of the bonafide title of the KAA land and fake ones held by the Mlolongo Brothers Association.

The Association sold the parcels of land to the residents whose houses were demolished.

He said none of the documents being held by the association in connection to their alleged ownership of the land could be traced in the ministry of lands records.

"This is the work of tricksters who have perfected the art of forging land documents. But they should know that their days are numbered," said Orengo.

He said the criminal justice system should move with speed and arrest those implicated in the forgeries and have them prosecuted.

"The public should also make efforts to authenticate the status of any land they are buying at the ministry. They should not rely on brokers who are out to make a kill," said Orengo.

Orengo said KAA should have taken steps to fence its land to stop any illegal encroachment.

He said land speculators were eyeing undeveloped public land and raised a red flag over the intended encroachment of land belonging to the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation along the Kangundo-Nairobi highway.

He challenged financial institutions to diligently authenticate the ownership of land before extending credit facilities to borrowers.