Ruto surrenders land allegedly acquired illegally

By EVELYN KWAMBOKA

Eldoret North MP William Ruto has agreed to surrender a piece of land in Kaptabei Settlement Scheme he allegedly acquired illegally.

The High Court was on Monday told that apart from surrendering the land, the MP who is also a presidential aspirant, has conceded to relinquish the title deed in the next two months.

This, Lady Justice Rose Ougo was told, will be made possible in an agreement to be recorded in court, if Mr Adrian Muteshi accepts his property back without the costs he has incurred since he filed a case against the MP over the land issue.

Through his lawyer, Ruto said he has conceded to the two facts but does not accept the issue of surrendering profits made while in possession of the piece of land.

Ruto and Muteshi are expected back in court on March 19 for purposes of recording the settlement or they take dates for the case to be heard.

In the case, Muteshi claims Ruto illegally took his piece of land Kaptabei Scheme, Uasin Gishu after the 2007-2008 post election violence.

Muteshi told the court in his evidence in chief last year, that six workers at his 100-acre farm in Kaptabei Scheme, Uasin Gishu, were kicked out of the property in 2008 and have been unable to return since then.

"I went near the farm after post-election violence and got information that Ruto had taken over the land," he told the court.

Efforts to conduct a search on whether ownership of the property had changed were unsuccessful, forcing Muteshi to write to the Commissioner of Lands, asking him to intervene.

"Ruto is feared in Eldoret and nobody was willing to give me information, fearing for their lives," he told the court.

On June 8, 2010, the District Lands Registrar wrote to the commissioner explaining that the land was under the name of Dorothy Yator.

Yator allegedly sold the property to Ruto, with Muteshi clarifying that he had never charged the property’s title to secure money loaned to the woman by the settlement trustee.

Muteshi had identified the piece of land that previously belonged to a white settler and made an application to the then Lands minister Jackson Angaine, seeking his approval to purchase it.

His application was approved on October 3, 1968 and after paying the required amount plus some money for development, he acquired the land.

He was then given vacant possession of the property on October 15 of the same year.

He was later given an absolute title deed for the property after repaying the loans and the interest on March 17, 1989.

The farmer put up a home on the farm and purchased several Freshian cows from the Livestock ministry using a loan he secured from the Agricultural Finance Corporation (AFC) and a settlement scheme.

"I have never entered into a sale agreement with Ruto. Apart from seeing him on TV, I have never met him," he said.