Municipal officials to blame for land mess in Kisumu, report affirms

An aerial view of Kisii town on these pohtos taken 0n 26/04/2018.The town's economy is growing at Avery fast rate due to co-existence of people from different background and origin doing business in the town.[photo Sammy Omingo]

Officials of the defunct municipal council are to blame for irregular allocation of land in the county, a report has revealed.

The report by a task-force constituted by Governor Anyang' Nyong’o has recommended prosecution of the former municipality officials.

The report that is yet to be officially released comes after another one that had been commissioned by Prof Nyong'o's predecessor Jack Ranguma.  

While replying to questions on why he did not act on the first report before commissioning a second one, Nyong'o said: “We set out to answer a different question; we wanted to dig a little deeper."

He noted that public land was arbitrarily allotted to multiple owners in a scheme that saw potential investors scared off.

Nyong’o said so bad was the situation that the county was forced to seek private land to drive investment.

One project that has suffered due to the messy land allocation is the construction of 10,000 affordable housing units, which has been on hold.  

According to the report, a former mayor, town clerk and town planner are alleged to have presided over the illegal allocations.

The land allocation mess has been blamed for the displacement of people in Kanyakwar, Kajulu, Mamboleo, Kolwa and Kasule areas in Kisumu.

The task force reportedly sat for 120 days and went through land records dating back to 1965, before penning the report.

Several institutional houses sitting on prime land in the leafy Milimani Estate were also grabbed by influential individuals, according to the task-force.

"The multiple allocation of land in Kisumu was caused by greed, corruption, political patronage and impunity," the report reads.

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