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The Nairobian

Nandi governor accuse tea firm owners of sponsoring his political woes

Rift Valley

By Jacob Ng'etich | May 19, 2019

Nandi Governor Stephen Sang has started repossessing 12,000 acres of tea farms dished out during the colonial era.

Mr Sang pointed out that there were 10 pieces of lands in Nandi Hills totaling to 12,000 acres owned by ‘some rich families.’

“There are 37 huge tracts of lands owned by multi-nationals but we only have the records of 27 pieces of land, the rest are held in secrecy, we want to establish the ownership and how they acquired them,” he said.

The governor (pictured) said this follows a ruling by National Land Commission (NLC) in March in response to three complaints, that gave the county government mandate to survey the land.

“This week we launched a geospatial laboratory in Kapsabet, we are in the process to start survey to establish among other things how many acres are under the multinational companies, once we are done we will begin repossessing them,” said Sang.

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NLC said the county government would not allow renewal of the leases unless there was an agreement for the multi-nationals to provide public amenities.

The commission also ordered commuting of the 999 leaseholds to 99 years and recommended that the county government increases rent rates for benefit of the people.

Sh160m levy

“They (multi-national land owners) have gone to appeal, they are determined to subvert the will of the people, but we will not relent, my administration will begin survey soon, we will not be stopped, we are doing this for the sake of locals,” said Sang.

He said they had implemented NLC recommendations on historical land injustice and will now be charging the multi-nationals Sh5,000 for an acre of land per year up from Sh100 set in 1900.

“We are asking them to clear the Sh160 million levy they have been evading to pay the county government, because we plan to collect over Sh500 million per year, this will change the lives of our residents” said Sang.

He also suspects the emotive land issue was behind his latest political woes.

“My effort to unearth the owners is a source of my political troubles, I am however not cowed because this land belongs to Nandi residents,” said Sang.