State agencies clash over Mwea land ownership

Employees of the Mwea based National Irrigation Board erecting a bill board warning at the prime seven acre land. PHOTO: MUNENE KAMAU/STANDARD

A row has erupted between two government agencies over the ownership of a seven-acre prime property.

Kenya Agricultural Research and Livestock Organisation (Kalro) is accusing the National Irrigation Board (NIB) of allocating the piece of land that houses its research centre to private individuals. 

According to the research centre's manager, John Kimani, the land in question houses an ongoing construction of a Sh100 million ultra-modern molecular research laboratory.

Dr Kimani said the centre was a quarantine zone due to the nature of research activities it hosts, and that allowing intruders to occupy the land would pose serious risks to members of the public.

"Quarantined research areas are always unsafe to the general public world over and I wonder why the NIB found it fit to allocate this land to private individuals without consulting us," Kimani said.

The development saw all the 15 advisory committee members of the NIB's Mwea office sent packing last Friday.

Mwea East Sub-County Deputy Commissioner George Targon ordered that barbed wire fences erected by the developers be brought down.

Area NIB Manager Innocent Ariemba, said the National Land Commission (NLC) had been invited to resolve the land ownership row.